I Do! I Guess
by dracoismyboyfriendguys
Summary: When everything in Issy Fletcher's life seems to crumble around her, the only logical solution is to pretend to be engaged to Al Potter, right? Or not... Albus Potter/OC
1. the train to penzance

Trains, or any method of public transport really, are odd. There's all these people going on various journeys, which are just part of their various lives coming together for a moment. God, I'm corny. Travelling alone does that to me. I shouldn't be given too much time by myself or else I just talk to myself in my head and that always seems to lead to crazy tangents. Kind of like this.

I'm walking through the carriages, trying to find a spare seat. I bought my ticket four minutes before the train (the 12:39 to Penzance from King's Cross) left, so the man at the booth told me to just find one of the spare seats. The way he looked at me clearly showed he thought that this was an odd spur of the moment decision- if he only knew. Luckily, I don't have any luggage with me, so I'm able to navigate through the aisles relatively easily.

I'm in the process of squeezing past a pushchair when a voice calls out to me. "Isadora Fletcher? Is that you?"

I look up and see a young man, with floppy black hair and bright green eyes. "Albus Potter?"

"God, it's been ages," he says, moving his coat from the seat next to him so that I can sit down.

"Almost five years," I tell him. "I haven't seen you since we left Hogwarts." I say the last word quietly, just in case. Albus and I went to school together and we were actually pretty good friends for a while because we were both prefects in our last years. What he's doing on a muggle train to Penzance, I can't imagine. But we spend the next few minutes catching up; I skirt around some of the details but we end up laughing so hard that the woman with the pushchair gives us a dirty look.

"So what are you going down to Penzance for?" Al asks, more quietly. He's eyeing me up suspiciously, clearing confused as to why I'm travelling with no luggage at all.

I sigh. "It's a long story."

"It's a long train ride," he laughs, glancing out of the window where the city streets are still racing by.

"Well," I say, "let me think where to start."

Because this is actually a long story. Usually the old 'long story' quip gets thrown about here and there when people can't really be bothered to explain themselves, but this… Well it's just not the same. See, when I woke up this morning, I had two of the things I think are crucial for any fledgling adult. Firstly, I had a stable job. It wasn't the most exciting job in the world; I was a HR manager at a publishing company, it printed spell books and the like. I've never exactly known what I wanted to do, and leaving my post-school training with an Ancient Runes qualification didn't help with the ol' locking down a dream career. My sister Amy knew she wanted to be a healer since she was nine, and when she left school, she walked straight into the start of her professional life. Stupid Amy.

Anyway, the HR job was fine. It paid the bills which allowed me to live in a comfortable flat with my next vital step towards adulthood: a stable partner. Mark and I had been together for about two years, since I got the job and moved to London. Now, I'm not necessarily saying I thought he was 'The One' but we were living together in a nice apartment, with nice furniture we'd bought from nice little vintage shops, and we were even cultivating a nice little vegetable patch on our terrace. It was all very nice. Why then, I hear you ask, am I alone on a train to Penzance with only the clothes on my back and my handbag?

Let me tell you. This morning started off like any other. I woke up, showered, and made myself a coffee with the new muggle machine my mum bought for us for a joint Christmas present- how adult. I kissed Mark goodbye and told him I'd be back for dinner later. He works for a bar in Diagon Alley that opened recently, scouting DJs and bands to play evenings and events, so he mostly works from home. I took the Circle Line to Embankment as we don't have a fireplace to connect to the Floo network, and we're in one the new designated no-apparition zones- extra precautions by the ministry, and made my way through the hoards of commuters to office block where P.L Courtney & Sons Publishers is located. As soon as I walked in, I could tell something was up. Janelle, the receptionist, greeted me like usual, but there was something overly cheery in the way she spoke.

"What's up?" I asked her suspiciously.

"Up? A Quidditch pitch!" she said, her voice even more shrill than normal. She glanced over to the office of Peter Courtney himself, and then smiled at me sympathetically. "He's asked to speak to you."

My heart sank. "Fuck," I muttered, running a hand through my hair and trying to recall any sackable offence I may have committed recently. I'm not a saint, but I couldn't think of anything I'd done, except maybe using the work fridge to store my tanning potion- Mark says it makes our fridge smell funny.

"It might be something good!" Janelle suggested hopefully.

"Oh yeah," I scoffed, "and I hear the Pope's a jew."

Janelle didn't laugh, but she did shoot me a final hopeful smile that turned into more of a grimace. I shrugged off my coat, and hung it up with my handbag on the pegs next to Janelle's desk. Preparing myself with a deep breath, I approached the office door and knocked tentatively. I felt like a naughty school girl, about to get told off for sticking chewing gum under the desks or being caught in another house's common room.

"Come in," a voice called from inside so I do, trying to look like an reliable and pleasant employee.

"Ah, Isadora," Peter said, as if he didn't expect to see me. Maybe he thought that I'd hear his request to see me and run a mile in the opposite direction. No such luck, Pete. "How are you doing?"

Fantastic, I love the sense of feeling like I'm literally about to crap my pants. You? "Fine thanks," I said, steadying my voice.

"Good, good." He drew out the words and walked round to the front of his desk. For a pretty important guy, he honestly couldn't look more dull. He had his thick rimmed glasses on and what's left of his thinning hair was pulled over his scalp. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes wearily.

"Look, Isadora," he began. 'Look' is never the start to a positive sentence and I started to think that maybe it would have been better to just walk back out of the office blocks, back to the tube station and crawl back into bed. That, or I could have just thrown myself into the Thames. "Why don't you take a seat?"

I obliged, slumping down into one of the chairs near where he was standing in front of his desk. "It's no secret that the company's facing a difficult time at the moment. And, while we value you as a worker, I'm afraid that there's just not enough work for you anymore." I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach.

"Right," I said. It was the only thing I could think of to say. The rest of the meeting is rather a blur. I think he said something about a reference, a recommending me for a position somewhere else.

"Look, Isadora," he said, _again_ with the 'Look'. "I'm sorry, I truly am." He did look pretty distressed and I actually felt a bit sorry for the bloke, despite the fact that he was currently tearing down my perfectly constructed entrance to adulthood.

"I understand," I said, which was true. The concept of being fired isn't too hard to grasp; he needn't have used so many words. A simple ' _You're gone, love'_ probably would have had a similar effect.

"You'll be paid your wages for the next month, of course," he said. "But we see no reason for you to continue you work."

"So… that's it then?" The finality of it hit me and I blinked back tears. I didn't want to make the situation any more awkward than it already was.

"I'm afraid so."

"Right."

Half an hour later, I was sitting on the tube again, struggling with a cardboard box containing the few things which I'd brought for my office. A potted plant that I'm not entirely sure was real- I can't remember the last time I watered the thing, a wooden hippogriff whose head wobbled about while I typed, and some framed pictures of me and my family and me and Mark. When someone's sitting on public transport outside of peak time, carrying a box of office decorations, with some remnants of mascara tracks on their face, you don't need three tries to guess what's happened. I had to endure the sympathetic glances of strangers the whole ride home, and hey- you can't spell sympathetic without pathetic.

And I felt pathetic. It wasn't that I particularly loved the job, but I more loved what it represented. It was my way of saying 'Haha, Amy. I took Divination NEWT and I still got the same starting salary as you.' I didn't want to contemplate telling Amy or my mum; I know their faces will be even more tragic than those of the strangers on the tube. I was trying to hold myself together, with as much dignity as was possible in that situation until I could get home to Mark. I wanted to get to my flat, take these stupid heeled shoes off and crawl into bed with him. I tried calling him (it's so much easier than owls) when I left the office but his phone rang out. I supposed he was working.

By the time I'd struggled off the tube, through the station and all the way back to the flat, I was exhausted. Frankly, I was disappointed that none of my sympathetic onlookers offered to help me, I was at least hoping to profit a little off my misery- stupid muggles. I went into the lobby and cranked myself up for the arduous task of lugging this box up the stairs. Then one of my neighbours, Mrs Priestly, came in through the door and began walking up the stairs next to me. Fantastic.

Don't get me wrong, she's a nice enough lady but at that moment I seriously didn't have the patience to deal with her. She's about sixty, a muggle, and only seems to dress in shades of brown and beige. She calls herself Mrs Priestly, but I don't think she was ever actually married, or if she was, he's long gone. Lucky bastard. She seems to take more pleasure in gossiping about anything and everything than men.

"… so I said to her, I says, 'Jackie, if you're not going to invite Cynthia to your husband's funeral, then I don't think I'll be coming either.' and she says, 'Suit yourself then!' Can you believe it?"

When I didn't respond she looked at me inquisitively. Then, she seemed to take in the box and my glum expression and her mouth made a little 'o' shape. "Bad day, love?" she asked.

"Something like that," I replied, coming to a stop since we'd reached my floor. I didn't go into any more detail as I'm not sure I want to be the next person she gossips about on the stairs.

"It could be worse, love," she told me, as she heads up the next flight of stairs. "You could be Jackie!" But I wasn't listening anymore. I was fumbling around in my bag for my house-key, trying not to drop the blasted box of gloom.

When I finally got the door open and stepped inside, I saw my friend, Ella, standing in my kitchen. Confused, I put down my bag and the box and stepped towards her.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, she looked caught off-guard and took a second to answer. It wasn't that unusual to see her there as she's over a lot, but not in the middle of the day.

"Eh… I was just- borrowing a CD," she spluttered, gesturing wildly to Mark's extensive CD collection in a dresser separating the kitchen from the living room.

"Okay," I said. "A particular CD or?"

Ella looked panicked. We've been friends since I was doing post-school training because she was going out with my flat-mate, Chris, for a while. She's not exactly the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree but she's sweet and always a good laugh.

She's just about to start looking for a CD when a voice calls from the bedroom, "Come on, Els, you gonna leave me waiting with this boner all day?"

Well, Ella's a good laugh most of the time.

"And that, Albus dear, is why I find myself currently on this train to Penzance without a clue as to what I'm doing," I conclude. Al's face is contorted in horror. Then he just looks confused.

"But why _here?_ " he asks.

Good question. "I don't know," I say honestly. "When I heard Mark, I just turned around, grabbed my bag and started walking." Both him and Ella had called after me and followed me out of the flat, but frankly I didn't want to hear anything they had to say. "I ended up at King's Cross and got on the third train out of there."

"Three your lucky number?" Al asks, raising an eyebrow.

I laugh. "No, though that would be a better story." He still looks confused. "The first train was to Edinburgh- I can't stand the cold. And the second was to Paris, even _I'm_ not that dramatic." Although I wouldn't put running away to Paris past me.

Evan laughs and shakes his head. "You really are something, Isadora Fletcher."

"Something? And all this time I just thought I was a floating spirit," I say.

"Well, technically," he laughs, "that would be still be something. Just less, substantial."

I laugh and then sigh deeply. Now that I've said it all out loud, it all sounds a lot crazier. In the space of six hours, I've lost everything. And now I'm speeding through the English countryside with less than thirty quid in muggle money in my pocket, a phone whose battery is probably dying and nowhere to go.

Al seems to have read my expression. "You okay?" he asks tentatively.

I smirk. "I'm really not sure."

"I can't quite tope your day of shite," Al says, "but I can offer up a story that might have some condolence."

"I'm all ears."

"My fiancé dumped me this morning."

"Shit."

"My sentiments exactly. And we'd only been going out for a few months. And we'd only been engaged for a week. And we were supposed to be going to visit my family now."

"Shit."

"Tell me about it," he sighs. "I just don't know what to do. My parents were giving me grief about getting engaged so quickly- I hadn't actually told them about Emily, that's her name, until we were engaged. It was all just a bit whirlwind, you know?" I don't but I nod anyway. "And now we were all supposed to be going on this retreat together but I didn't know how to tell them that I'd well…"

"Been dumped?" I prompt. Al doesn't look like he appreciates it very much.

"Right, so now everyone is going to a spa week in Penzance with my new fiancé."

"Sans fiancé," I say. Al sighs again. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay. I just don't know what to do," he says. "But, condoled?"

"Very much so." We both sit in silence for a few minutes contemplating our shit situations.

"Relationships suck," Al says.

"Amen." And then something occurs to me. It's ridiculous and embarrassing and Al may well just get up and walk away from me but… "Hey Albus?"

He turns and looks at me, thoroughly confused as to why I'm addressing him like we haven't been talking for the past half-hour. "Issy?"

"You said your family hadn't met your fiancé yet?" He's not catching on. "Well, have they seen a picture?"

"No," Al says slowly, still perplexed.

"Did you tell them that her name's Esme?"

"Emily," he corrects.

"Emily, whatever," I say. "Do they know that's her name?"

"I put it in the letter, I think, yeah. Who doesn't tell their parents their fiance's na-"

"Reckon we could pass it off that they read your terrible handwriting as that really saying Issy?"

"I don't have terrible…" he trails off as he realises what I'm suggesting. He furrows his brow and gives me a strange look. Brilliant, I've officially lost the plot. Al will just get up and run down the train carriage away from this crazy girl (me). We'll get to Penzance and he'll go off with his lovely, famous family who will be supportive and sympathetic because his fiancé's left him and then they'll all have a good laugh about crazy old Isadora. Meanwhile, I'll run out of money pretty quickly and be reduced to begging outside a Waitrose until I start to smell and then they'll kick me out and I'll have to go and beg outside Aldi instead.

"Issy- you okay?" Al asks, concerned that I've been staring into space for the last two minutes, imagining my future as Batty Beggar Isadora.

"Eh- yeah," I say, coming back to my senses. Or, as much as I can do that on a day like today. "So, what do you think?"

Al looks at me steadily. "I think," he says, "that you're actual mental." Oh god, here we go. Better find a hat for the nice people at Waitrose/Aldi to throw their coins into. "But it could actually work." Al is officially as mentally unstable as me. "And, I guess it would sort both our problems out."

"Right? And then after this week, you can just leave it a while and then tell them that you called off the engagement." Al's nodding in agreement with me.

"I like it," he says.

"Well, you know what we have to do now," I tell him, and he looks blankly at me, "construct a fake relationship."

 **A/N- I hope you enjoyed! I feel like this could be super fun to write!**

 **I love reviews & feedback!**

 **Alice x**

Edit- I've changed her name twice. I'm awful, I know.


	2. belly flop feeling

By the time the train reaches Exeter, Al and I have done a pretty good at making ourselves a convincing couple. We met (or, at least, 'remet') at a bar in Diagon Alley, our eyes met over a foaming butterbeer ("Mum and Lily will love that," Al assured me) and the rest is history. We also make sure that we have a decent idea of the ins and outs of the other's life.

"So what's my job?" Al asks, testing me.

"It's… something like data and I'm feeling something about statistics and…" I falter. I remember him telling me about ten minutes earlier but I also remember being distracted by the fact that the refreshments trolley was coming down the aisle.

"Come on, Issy!" Al groans. "This one's easy peasy. I'm a statistics analyser for the Ministry Treasury," he tells me, as if he's teaching an idiot what two add two is.

"Right." I nod. "Knew it was something boring."

"Hey!" he says. "At least I have a job. Too soon? Okay, alrighty…" he mutters, dusting off the crumbs from the cookie I've just thrown at him.

"My turn!" I say. "Tell me about my sister."

"Her name is Amy and she is a 'right old cow'," he laughs, directly quoting my earlier statement.

"Correct. And her job aside from being a prick is…?"

Al doesn't even pause. "She's a Healer. Potions Use and Abuse Department." God, I knew Al was clever at school but his recollection of monotonous details about my sister's life is pretty impressive. No wonder he has such an impressive sounding (yet boring) job.

When Al's finished testing me on his brother James's relationship history, he's able to recall all five flavours of my mother's _'_ _Vane's Soft & Sensuous- Chocolate with a twist' _range. He (reluctantly) coaxed me into telling him about her line of love potion chocolates, which she maintains are completely legal- "It's only a gentle aphrodisiac charm, Isadora!". I swear there must have been a mix-up at the hospital; sometimes I just can't see how I'm related to her and Amy. When I tell Al this, he laughs and says he doesn't know how he's related to James, either. I remember him from school, we were both in Gryffindor and he was only a year above me and Al. I can't recall ever thinking that there was a striking difference between the Potter boys. Personality wise, that is. In terms of looks, there's no denying that they're almost exactly identical.

"Hey, Issy?" Al says, looking across at me. "What about your dad? I mean, I've heard about your mum and your sister, but you never mentioned him."

I sigh, and meet his gaze, his bright green eyes wide with wonder and concern. "There's not much to know," I tell him.

"Oh," he says, quickly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No it's fine. I just," I pause, not exactly sure what to say. "My dad's called Malcolm, he's 57, and he's a doctor." Al looks confused, so I carry on. "He's a muggle and, to be honest, I don't think he ever particularly liked the fact that Mum was a witch. I think he felt it threatened his masculinity, or something. Anyway, he left in our first year at Hogwarts. He dropped me off at King's Cross after Christmas, and when I came back for the summer he'd left. I've seen him a couple of times since then, but not since I left school. I don't really know what he's doing now."

Al's still looking at me with that concerned expression. "I'm really sorry, Issy," he says, and takes my hand in his and grips it supportively.

I smile. "It's okay. He was a bit of a tosser, anyway. Seems to be a recurring theme in my family."

"I think it is in all families," Al says and I raise my eyebrows at him skeptically. "What?"

"Oh, I don't know," I laugh. "It's not as if your dad is only bloody _Harry Potter_ or anything? Bet he was a right tosser, when he was, you know, saving the Wizarding World."

Al smirks. "You should see him when he loses at Wizard's Chess. Fucking nightmare; I've never seen strops like it."

I snort and look at him incredulously. " _What?_ " he asks again.

"Oh come off it, Potter," I say. "I remember I beat you once in fifth year and you didn't speak to me for a week!"

Al shakes his head and furrows his brow, pretending to think. "Can't recall it."

"It was winter, I think, when Priyanka and Scorpius were going out, and we'd all gone to your common room to hang out. Only, those two went off to Scorp's dorm after about ten minutes so we ended up playing chess."

"And I seem to remember you had some dirty tactics, Fletcher."

"Skill isn't dirty, Potter."

"Depends what you're skilled at." He grins up at me mischievously and I laugh.

Around that time was probably when Al and I knew each other the best at school. One of my best friends, Priyanka Patil, was going out with his mate Scorpius Malfoy, which of course meant that more often than not, Al and I would be left alone together while the happy couple went off to do whatever it is that happy couples do. Although, like most Hogwarts relationships, it didn't last more than a couple of months, so we didn't really spend that much time together after that, save for a couple of joint prefect duties in the last two years.

"How is Scorpius?" I ask.

"He's well, yeah. Charms broomsticks for Firebolt, can you believe?"

It's not really that hard to believe: Scorpius was obsessed with Quidditch at school. I think that's what broke him and Priyanka up in the end. She was seeker for the Gryffindor team, while he played keeper for the Slytherins. One "completely fucking ridiculous" win later, they were broken up with Priyanka cursing the day she ever decided to give one of those "dirty Slytherin bastards" a second look.

We carry on like this for a while, catching up and laughing about old times until the voice over the tannoy announces that we will be approaching Penzance in about ten minutes. Not for the first time, I realise again how crazy this is. I mean, it's not just the fact that I haven't seen Al for years and now I'm supposed to act like I'm in love with him, there's also that Al's family is famous. Somebody's sure to mention to somebody that Harry Potter's son is engaged and then what if someone realises it's me and that we're evidently _not_ engaged and before you know it, every Tom, Dick and Harry will know. Or hopefully not Harry, but you get the gist.

Some of this must read on my face because Al's looking at me strangely. "You alright, Issy?"

"Me? Right as rain," I say, but it comes out more like a titter.

"We'll be fine," Al says soothingly, taking my hand in his and giving it a gentle squeeze. "Besides," he continues, raising his eyebrows, "I happen to be very accomplished at the _Obliviate_ charm. You know, if the worst comes to the worst."

I laugh. "Just make sure you hit me with it too."

"Promise," he says solemnly.

"So," I say, glancing out of the train window at the coastal countryside speeding past. Nothing here looks particularly appealing so far and the grey sky isn't particularly helping matters. "Where is it we're _actually_ going?"

" _West Way Spa & Spring_," Al tells me, and then, seeing my face which is asking something along the lines of 'And why would you want to go there?', he adds, "My cousin, Victoire, just opened it and my mum and Lily have been banging on about going there for weeks. So, with Emily and everything, they thought it would be the perfect place to meet my fiancé."

"Sans fiance. Too soon? Okay, alrighty," I mimic, lowering my voice.

"I don't talk like that!"

" _I don't talk like that!"_

He opens his mouth to retort but is interrupted by the tannoy telling us that we'll be approaching within the next couple of minutes.

While Al gathers up his bags, I pull my phone out of my jacket pocket and check it for the first time since leaving London. I have six missed calls and five messages, which is far more than I would ever usually have- not many of my friends actually use their phones regularly, but I'm still kind of disappointed. I mean, I drop off the face of the planet for all anyone else knows and I only get five messages? Fan-dabby-dosey. I check them anyway.

 _13:46  
_ _From: Mark  
_ _Issy, please, call me. Where have you gone?_

 _13:57  
_ _From: Mark  
_ _I'm serious. Where are you?_

 _14:30  
_ _From: Ella  
_ _Issy, I'm sorry! I can explain, but please just call Mark, we're worried about you._

Aw, _we're worried,_ it's nice that they're doing things as a couple. Besides, you know, shagging in my bed.

 _15:13  
_ _From: Priyanka  
_ _Issy where r u? Ella told me what happened- I knew she was a bitch! Al and I are worried. U can stay here if u need to!_

 _16:48  
_ _From: Mark  
_ _Look, Issy, if you don't call me soon, I'm gonna have to call your mum. I'm worried_

I'm scowling at my phone at that last text, trust Mark to threaten me with the one person I really can't deal with right now. I text Priyanka back first; her and Al- her roommate and the third member of our trio, Alice Longbottom- haven't done anything to deserve them being worried. I tell them that I'm fine and staying with a friend- they won't ask anything more about that, for now. I begrudgingly also reply to Mark, saying basically the same but without the kisses at the end. That'll show him.

The train begins to slow as it pulls into the station and we walk towards the door.

"Wait Al- why did you take the train, anyway? Why not apparate?" I say the last word quietly, just in case.

Al looks a bit embarrassed. "You apparate drunk once, and suddenly you're 'a danger to the society we hold near and dear'."

"You apparated drunk?" I snort, earning a confused look from the lady with the pram behind us.

"Yes- but I'd rather that the deaf old lady in Scotland didn't know about it," Al hisses. "And _especially_ not my parents."

"So, you're telling me that you _don't_ want your parents to know that their perfect little Albus lost his apparition license? Hmm, that's really interesting, Al. Guess it means that you have to do _whatever_ I want. What do you think?"

"I think," he says darkly, "that if shit were wit, you'd have diarrhoea."

I wrinkle my nose. "You're disgusting."

"And you're in need of a place to stay tonight, so let's get going, shall we?"

I smirk and follow him through the doors which have just opened up onto the busy platform. We make our way through the hoards of muggle commuters, up the stairs and out onto the Penzance street. The sky is beginning to clear, sending bright rays of warm sunlight down, which cut crisply through the November air. Once we're clear of the station, we find a side street and move quickly out of sight of any passersby. Al tells me the exact description for our destination and I picture it clearly in my mind.

"Ready?" I say, holding out my arm for Al. He grasps it firmly. "Now make sure you hold on nice and tight, Allykins."

"You know what-"

But I don't find out what, because before he can finish his sentence, I've disapparated. The familiar feeling of being squeezed through a very tight tube takes over for a few seconds before we land, a few miles away, outside Victoire's spa hotel.

"I feel like I'm seven years old again," Al says, shaking his head to clear a blocked ear. "I think my family are probably already here."

 _West Way Spa & Spring_ is, at least through muggle eyes, a crumbling old hotel at the end on a long country road, about a mile or two outside of Penzance. It's a bit like Hogwarts, charmed so that no muggle would ever voluntarily set foot in there, and, if by some mistake they do happen to wander onto the grounds, there's a memory charm installed which will make them forget what they're doing and return back in the opposite direction. For witches and wizards however, the building is large and white, with dark, red roses growing up the walls, despite the fact that it's the middle of winter. It's several stories high, with two large fountains out front, each shooting up long stems of pink water. In short, it looks like the castle in a Disney film my dad showed me once when I was little.

We begin to walk inside as another wave of anxiety hits me. This is a particularly intense type of nervousness. It's an, oh crap I'm about to take my Divination NEWT and I've just realised that I've made up every prediction I've had this year nervous. Al takes my arm in his. I'm not sure whether it's because I look as nervous as I feel, and he's just trying to calm me, or whether he's beginning the fiancé facade, just in case his family are lurking around.

"Ready?" he mutters, as we approach the entrance.

"As I'll ever be," I whisper back, swallowing the lump in the back of my throat.

The doors open as we approach without either of having to utter a single incantation. That being said, the doors at the muggle supermarket where I buy groceries do the same thing, so I suppose magic isn't always that impressive. I'm gripping Al's arm more tightly now, holding onto him as if I'm about to disapparate off again.

And I'm extremely tempted to do just that. Because standing there in the foyer are the Potters. I recognise them immediately, of course. Not just because of briefly seeing them at King's Cross at the beginning of each year as they were dropping off Al, James and Lily, but also because their faces are often splashed across the front pages of the tabloid magazines in Diagon Alley. Only last week I was reading an article about Ginny Potter's supposed favourite anti-wrinkle potion. Her skin does look pretty smooth, maybe I should ask her about it.

Ginny's the first person I notice, which is really saying something considering she's standing next to Harry Potter. Her flaming, red hair hasn't faded at all since the first time I saw her at the station over a decade ago and she's laughing at something Harry's said, her freckled face pulled into a large smile. Harry's not looking so bad himself. His dark hair is greying somewhat and he has deeper lines around his mouth than the magazines suggest, but I suppose defeating the Dark Lord is bound to leave a few wrinkles. Even from here, I can see how much he looks like Al, especially similar in their eyes. Al's brother, James, is also a near carbon-copy of the both of them. But while Al and Harry are made so alike by their eyes, James's are a darker hazel. Lily has changed a lot since the last time I saw her; her face has lost most of its roundness and she's cut her hair to just below her chin, which only adds to emphasise her chiselled features. When they spot us walking through the doors, they all turn around excitedly.

"Albus!" Ginny cries excitedly, rushing to embrace her son. She then turns and faces me. "Emily! It's so nice to finally meet you!"

She's pulling me into a tight hug too, as Al says, "It's _Issy_ , Mum!"

Ginny frowns at Al but then just smiles at me warmly. "Issy, of course! How are you, dear?"

"I'm well thanks, Mrs Potter," I reply meekly.

"Oh don't call me, Mrs Potter, it makes me sound so old! It's Ginny." As if I wouldn't know her name. It's the classic parent line but I smile anyway. It's odd, even though I know I'm only going to be seeing them for the next week at the most, I'm still trying to make a good impression, like they're my actual future parents-in-law.

I shake Harry's hand and he also repeats the whole 'My surname makes me sound old' spiel.

"We've heard _so_ much about you!" Ginny says.

I raise my eyebrows at Al as Lily also hugs me and he shakes his head at me, telling me that his mother is, in fact, just being polite and hasn't heard anything about me, or Emily, at all.

"We've arranged to go for dinner in the hotel tonight," Harry says to me and Al. "But you can go and leave your things in your…" He trails off, clearly confused as to why I have no luggage with me.

Fuck. Panicked I hold up my small handbag. "Extension charm," I splutter. "Always comes in handy!"

Harry nods and smiles, though it seems to be more to himself than to the rest of us. "It does, doesn't it?"

Ginny tells us that we're in an apartment-style suite, sharing with James and Lily too. Al grimaces at me slightly; we were relying on not having to keep up the pretence in the hotel room. This is just getting better and better, isn't it. The four of us take the staircase up to ur suite, which is on the first floor. The hotel is, of course, as glorious on the inside as out. It's charmed to look like a medieval castle, with white stone walls and light that looks exactly like a midsummers afternoon, warm and glowing. Our suite is aptly named 'Masquerade Ball', and is decorated with large, bejewelled masks that adorn the walls, accompanied with moving quotes that say things like 'Nothing is as it seems.' I mean, come on! Wizard god must seriously hate me. Al looks guiltily at me as Lily squeals about how much she loves it! She disappears into her bedroom (to "Call her stupid, muggle boyfriend," Al tells me), and Al himself dashes off to the toilet ("Well I wasn't about to use the dirty ones on the train!") so James and I are left alone in the living area.

"You're Amy Fletcher's sister, aren't you?" he asks. It's the first thing he's said to me, but he's been staring at my face as if trying to place me.

I'm surprised, to be honest. Amy was in Ravenclaw and boy oh boy did she live up to the stereotypes. I'm pretty sure you can count the number of days Amy _didn't_ go to the library while she was at Hogwarts on one hand. I get that they were in the same year and so probably shared some lessons together but still, James and I shared a common room for six years!

Trying to hide my wounded pride at the fact that I'm less memorable than dear Amy, I nod. "Yep, that's me."

"Ah, lovely," James says.

"Lovely?" That's one way to describe Amy Fletcher. Not the first one I would opt for myself but-

"So you're just mini-Fletcher?"

I don't even try to hide my offence now. "I do _not_ look like Amy!" I protest.

James grins and wiggles his eyebrows. " _Sure_ you don't." He pauses. "Mini-Fletcher."

"Okay fine then, mini-Potter," I shoot back.

"Ah, see. That's where you're wrong, Fletcher," he tells me, seriously. "It's all in the eyes." He's pointing at his darker eyes.

"Amy has blue eyes!"

" _Sure_ , Fletcher!"

Two hours later, I'm eating a fancy dinner in a beautiful dining room with the Potter family. And that is a sentence I didn't think I'd be saying this morning. This morning. I can't believe that this morning I was in my flat in London with my boyfriend. This whole _thing_ with Albus has been a good distraction, I guess, but it keeps hitting me. And every time it does, it feels like that time in third year when I fell off my broomstick and belly flopped to the ground. Only it hurts in my heart too.

"You okay, Issy?" Al murmurs to me; I realise I haven't spoken for a couple of minutes and everyone seems to have notice my silence.

"Sorry, yeah I'm fine," I whisper back and smile as brightly as I muster. "So, Lily, tell me about your job."

She looks a bit frightened at my sudden enthusiasm but is soon telling me about her apprenticeship as a potion-ingredient source manager for St Mungo's.

"Issy's sister works there too!" Al says excitedly, clearly over the moon that he can dip into his newly created pool of random facts about me.

" _Amy Fletcher_ ," James smirks and I scowl at him.

Harry asks some polite questions about what exactly it is that she does and I tell him, trying (and failing) to make potion per particle of blood concentration measurements sound interesting.

"And, what do you do, Issy?" Ginny asks me.

I feel my face getting a bit warm and the belly-flop feeling creeps in again. "Eh, I'm not working at the moment," I admit. But before anyone has the chance to pity me, I add, "I'm thinking about doing an internship. I did one in Ancient Runes, but I'm not sure that's the path I want to go down."

"What are you thinking of going into?" Harry asks, cutting into his steak.

I glance down at my own salmon fillet and desperately try to think of something. "Writing, journalism, something like that," I blurt out. I've said it before I've even thought about it, but then I realise that that probably is true. When I left Hogwarts, I did apply for some writing-based internships, but none of them were paying and my mum didn't want to fork out to get me a flat, so I didn't do them in the end.

The Potters make polite comments about how nice a job like that would be and the conversation moves in this general direction. I tune out most of the time, only contributing when the talk is turned towards me. I realise this sounds completely selfish, but would you honestly listen to James Potter droning on about his position in the Department of Mysteries? After dinner, we head up to our suite pretty early, and I think Al and I are both extremely glad about that; keeping up the pretence was harder than I thought it would be. We only had a couple of fumbles: when Al thought I'd grown up in Sunderland (not Surrey), and when I mispronounced his middle name as Severon. But I thought mine was an excusable mistake- I mean really, who is actually called Severus?

Lily's all about us having a drink from the mini-bar in our kitchen once we're back up in the suite, but one look at the swirling 'Masquerade' print on the wall makes me feel nauseous. I excuse myself with a headache and slink into the room Al and I are sharing. It's gorgeous of course, like the whole hotel. The large bed takes up most of the room, covered with a cream, satin bedspread. The carpet is a similar shade of light cream as are the walls. I feel like I'm making the whole room dirty just by standing in it. There's also a light pink chaise-lounge on one side of the room. Al and I argued over who would sleep there and who would take the bed but he whipped out the "You're a girl! You need a bed." card. It's anti-feminist, I suppose. But right now, there's nothing I want more than to climb under the sheets of the fancy bed and fall asleep. As I throw myself down onto said bed, Al follows me into the bedroom.

"Issy, you okay?" he asks, perching next to me on the bed.

"Yeah," I tell him. "Just… tired." He nods. "I just didn't think it would be so hard."

He sighs. "I know what you mean."

I don't say anything and close my eyes, sinking my head back into the plush pillow. I feel like I've made a huge mistake. The Potters are nice enough, of course, but I can't shake the feeling that I'm manipulating them. I should have just got off the train and apparated home, and dealt with this whole situation like an adult. Or better yet, I wouldn't have got on the train in the first place. That would have solved a lot of problems. I should have just spoken to Mark.

Mark.

I suddenly have an overwhelming desire to talk to him. He's a douchebag, a twat, a fuckboy, a straight up piece of shit. But I love him, and that doesn't go away overnight. Or, you know, over a train journey to Penzance.

My eyes shoot open. In the time I've been lying there, contemplating poor life decisions. Al has got up and left. Smart boy. I sit up and pull my phone out of my back pocket. There are two texts:

 _18:05  
_ _From: Priyanka  
_ _glad ur okay! but please just owl me later! u know i hate this muggle crap_

 _18:16  
_ _From Mark  
_ _I'm glad you're okay. I'm so sorry, Issy. You have to believe me. Owl me later, if you want. Love you._

There are tears stinging my eyes before I've really had the opportunity to take it all in. And then without really thinking (when am I really thinking these days?), I'm heading to the vanity opposite the chaise-lounge, picking up the _West Way_ embossed parchment and writing.

 _Mark,  
_ _I'm at the West Way Spa & Spring, Penzance. Can you please apparate here and bring me some clothes. I think we need to talk.  
_ _Issy_

I don't read it before folding it over. I grab a new sheet and begin scrawling again.

 _Priyanka and Al,  
_ _So I've done something super crazy which I can't quite explain right now. But please don't worry about me, I'm okay. I'll let you guys know more soon.  
_ _Love,  
_ _Issy_

I snatch up both sheets and rush out of the bedroom.

"Have they got owls here?" I cry, as I burst into the living area. Al, James and Lily are sprawled across the sofas and drinking what looks like firewhiskey out of glass tumblers. They all look up at me, confused, and I realise how similar they all look when they furrow their brows.

"Fletcher! How's the head?" James says, grinning at me.

"Do they have owls to use here?" I repeat, ignoring James.

Al gets up and walks over to me. "Yeah I think there's some on the ground floor," he says, taking my hands and looking up at me. "Are you sure you're okay, Issy?"

"I'm fine," I mutter, dashing past him before he can say anything else, and out of the suite. I take the stairs two at a time on the way down. I'm not sure where this sudden burst of energy has come from, but I just have a need to get these letters sent. After a brief (on my part) conversation with the lady at the reception who is just too chirpy for my liking, I'm able to attach my letters to a small, grey owl and shove him out the downstairs window. I climb back up the stairs more slowly, catching my breath. I think I just needed to send it before I changed my mind.

When I go back in, Al rushes to my side again. "What going on?" he murmurs, pulling me out of earshot of Lily and James.

"I'm sorry," I say. "My mum was pestering me, I just had to reply to her."

I think a part of him knows I'm lying, but he nods and smiles slightly. "It'll be okay."

I make my headache excuse again and return to my bedroom, falling down onto the bed again. I must fall asleep because I jerk awake to a loud crack some time later. Groggily, I check the gold watch on my wrist; it reads half-past twelve. There's no sound coming from the living area so I assume that the Potters must have gone to bed. A glance towards the chaise-lounge confirms this as I see Al curled up there, wearing just his underwear. I'm about to roll over and go back to sleep, when I hear a tapping sound coming from the living area.

I slink out of bed and pad out as quietly as I can, holding the door to make sure it doesn't slam behind me. And then, behind the sliding door leading out to the balcony, I see Mark. My stomach flips over and I feel my hands begin to clam up just at the sight of him. How pathetic am I?

I walk over and unlock the door. "What are you doing here?" I hiss, stepping outside, despite the fact that I'm not wearing any shoes. "I thought you'd call me first."

He shrugs. "I had to see you. And bring you these." He holds up a carrier bag and smiles. I don't understand why he's being so bloody nonchalant about turning up here in the middle of the night.

"How did you find out where I was?"

"I asked the secretary. But no one answered the door and the inside has an anti-apparition charm on it. Almost splinched myself but I managed to land here instead." He says this as if he's telling me about a trip to the shops and I'm pissed off by how casual he is. I don't even want to think about what could have happened if someone else had opened the door.

"I- I… don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," he says. "But I do. I'm sorry." I start to interrupt but he holds up a hand to stop me. "I'm an idiot and I'm sorry. I get that you don't want to hear this, and you probably don't even want to see me, but I had to say it."

I'm not usually a person who runs out of things to say, but right now I'm lost for words. I shrug and pull away from him. A part of me wants to kiss him, and tell him that it's okay. That we can move on and go back to our normal lives. But I know that's not true. Even seeing him now, I can't look him in the eye.

I take the bag of clothes from him and step backwards again. "Thank you," I whisper, "for the clothes. But I need to go."

"No," he says firmly, taking my arm and pulling me in. "You need to talk to me."

I sigh. "Why did you do it?"

He looks away. "I don't know. It was stupid."

"Do you still love me, Mark?" My voice is barely audible now and it's shaking with the sob choking the back of my throat. I blink and a tear rolls down my face. Mark moves towards me, reaching his hand up to wipe it away but I bat him away and rub it off myself.

"Issy," he says and it's all I need to hear.

"Go now, please." I walk back towards the door, more tears falling now.

"Issy wait- don't."

I turn back. "Say something to me that will make me stay." He knows what he needs to say, I can see him thinking everything over.

He opens his mouth and my stomach flips again. "I'm sorry," he says.

"Me too." I stand there, staring at him. He looks like he might say something else but then the moment passes. He lingers a second longer then disapparates with a crack.

I'm crying harder now, the tears rolling down my cheeks. I lean against the wall and catch my head in my hands, trying to breathe deeply. When I've stopped crying so loudly, I slip back inside and walk to the kitchen to pour myself some water. I'm drinking it, steadying myself when I hear a slight cough from behind me.

"You alright, Fletcher?" It's James, standing up from the sofa and walking towards me. His dark hair is even messier than in the daytime and the stubble around his mouth is thickening. He's also only wearing his boxers. Him and Al could be twins when they're asleep; it's really only Al's bright green eyes which distinguish them.

I'm about to say 'I'm fine' for the hundredth time but I don't. Because really, if you can't express your true feelings to your fake future brother-in-law, then who can you express them to?

"I'm a bit shit." And then I laugh at the ridiculousness of this whole situation.

James looks a bit taken aback at this outburst. "So, what's with the tears? 'Cause I know that Albus isn't the _best_ Potter sibling, but he's not that bad, I promise."

I sniff and drink some more water, considering what to tell him. "It's not Al," I say honestly. "It's just… everything really." And then I'm crying again.

James comes closer to me and puts an arm around me. He's clearly a bit uncomfortable but I appreciate it all the same. I can smell his musky scent and the firewhiskey on his breath. "I don't know what to say, cause frankly I'm crap at dealing with these situations."

"What situations?" I ask. "Crying girls in your kitchen?"

He laughs and rubs his hand against my arm. "Something like that. Don't have much experience with it."

"Always a good sign."

"Yeah, I suppose it is." He pauses and takes him arm from around me. I imagine he's about to walk to his bedroom, and think he's considering it. Then he reaches out quickly and takes my hand comfortingly. "Look, Fletcher. I know you've got Al, but if you ever need someone… _else_ to talk to about anything, I'll be out here."

"In the kitchen?" I laugh.

"I like to be near a food source at all times." He winks at me.

"I should be getting back to-"

"Al."

I was going to say bed but I nod. "Night, James."

"G'night, Fletcher."

I walk quickly back to my room without looking back over my shoulder. James is still in the kitchen, watching me. I can feel his eyes on my back, but I don't want to turn to see him. I shut the door behind me and Al stirs on the chaise-lounge.

"Emily?" he mumbles, his voice thick with sleep.

"Go back to sleep, Al," I tell him.

"Issy? You okay?" He sits up and rubs his eyes blearily. "What time is it?"

"Not sure," I whisper. "Went to the toilet."

"Oh. You sure you're alright?"

I smile sadly. "I've been better."

"I know how you feel."

I lie back on the bed, staring up at the ornate cream ceiling. Then I feel the bed moving. Al is crawling across it towards me. "You looked sad," he murmurs, putting an arm around me. He smells different from James, fresher and softer.

"Did I?"

"Very, and I've only re-known you for twelve hours so it's not even a nuanced sad."

"What's a nuanced sad?"

"No idea," Al whispers into my hair.

"I hate being dumped."

"I know how you feel."

* * *

 _ **A/N- Hope you guys enjoyed this update! Thanks for the great feedback so far! I would love to hear what you think of this chapter!**_

 _ **Alice**_


	3. avocado and poached eggs

Contemplating how my life ended up like this over a plate of avocado and poached eggs is something that would have seemed strange a few days ago, and yet here I am. I woke up this morning still wearing half of my outfit from last night, holding a bag of clothes put together by my (ex) boyfriend, and snuggled up with Albus Potter.

And I hadn't even been drinking.

I take a long sip of coffee and flick through the _Daily Prophet_ absentmindedly. Hogwarts has slipped down the rankings of the world's wizarding schools and the Ministry has decreed that brewing potions rated XX or higher on the toxicity scale without a license is now a criminal offence. It's just me and Lily left at the breakfast table in the dining room, the others all having finished and gone to get ready. She hasn't brushed her hair and is wearing a sweatshirt over her pyjamas, but there's no denying that she's gorgeous. She notices me staring at her and raises her eyebrows suspiciously.

"You alright, Issy?" she asks, smiling.

"Yeah, sorry. My mind was somewhere else."

Lily nods. "Look, I need to talk to you. Let's make a point of hanging out later, okay?"

"Sure," I say, uncertainly. Lily smiles again, but this time it's firmer. She stands up and heads back upstairs, leaving me sat at the large table alone. My heart begins to pound. I have no idea what she wants to say.

Okay, that's not entirely true. There are plenty of things she _could_ want to say to me. Maybe she saw Mark and I on the balcony last night and she wants to curse me into oblivion for cheating on her brother. Maybe she saw James and I in the kitchen and is wondering why we felt the need to have a late night DMC without Al. Maybe she's figured that Al and I aren't actually a modern day Romeo and Juliet and she wants to give me a chance to run before she exposes me.

I down the rest of the coffee, deciding I need as much energy as possible to deal with today. Ginny informed me brightly this morning that her, Lily and I had been booked in for a spa day, while the boys are going off to play Quidditch. I would have protested against the gender stereotyping, but I'm about as good as a flobberworm at playing Quidditch. I'm pretty sure that this has been strategically set up to extract as much information about our 'relationship' as possible. Al told me on the train yesterday that Ginny would try to corner me at some point ("She has an overwhelming need to know everything, all the time."), and quite honestly, the thought of it is enough to make my stomach turn. I've never been the best at thinking up lies on the spot. When I was eight, and I'd eaten all of the red colour beans from Amy's box of _Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans_ , I told her that I'd been turned into a vampire and was searching for a blood favoured one.

It's safe to say I'm fairly screwed.

* * *

An hour later, I'm standing with Lily and Ginny under the showers before the entrance to the spa, where frothing, multi-coloured water pours down on us. I'm wearing a make-shift red bikini and feeling thoroughly uncomfortable. I say 'make-shift' because Mark didn't pack me any sort of swimwear so I spent a few minutes panickedly attempting to transfigure my bra and knickers into an acceptable bikini. Neither of the Potter girls have said anything, so I'm hoping they haven't noticed. That, or they're just being polite.

When we're through the showers, we walk into the main body of the spa. Green, blue, and silver tiles cover the walls and floors and give the whole place an underwater feel. There's a light, piano music coming from somewhere, although I couldn't tell you exactly, and there's a strong smell of peppermint and lavender.

"Wow," I murmur, taking the whole place in. I don't think I've been anywhere this fancy since the prefects' bathroom at Hogwarts.

"I know, right," Lily whispers, gazing up in awe beside me.

There's only about ten other people milling about, but I can't hear any other voices. This seems like the type of place where you have to whisper for no apparent reason, like a bookshop.

Ginny says (in a hushed voice) that she needs the toilet and will catch up with us later, so Lily and I venture towards one of the side-rooms together. A part of me feels like this is a secret plan they've concocted as stage one of my interrogation, but Lily seems perfectly relaxed so I follow her, with only a slight feeling that I'm about to be skinned alive. Let's just say I'm glad that Lily doesn't have a wand on her at the moment. Unless she's got it hidden under her bikini or something.

The room we've gone into is thick with steam which wraps around my body and makes me feel weightless. We sit on the warm, tiled benches, and Lily throws her head back and inhales deeply.

"Victoire told me that there's a relaxant potion mixed in with the steam," she says, her eyes closed and head rolling back.

I pull my knees up to my chest and rest my head on them. Breathing in deeply, I feel it; almost a tingling feeling inside my chest. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but I'm certainly a lot less afraid of my impending inquisition from the Potter girls.

I smirk. "I feel like one of those Slytherins who used to drink potions in the toilets before lessons."

Lily laughs and sits back up. "Oh Merlin, I remember! Honestly, who has the time?"

"Exactly! I could barely keep up the homework Slughorn was setting us without worrying about brewing anything else in my spare time."

"D'you reckon he's still alive? I mean, he must be about a hundred and fifty by now."

"Lily!"

She shrugs nonchalantly. "What?" I raise my eyebrows. "Oh come off it, Issy. Don't tell you've never thought that he's probably kicked the bucket?"

"I can't say that I've spent a huge deal of time musing over it, no," I tell her, laughing. Hey- at least we're discussing somebody else's imminent death, rather than mine.

"So, Issy," she starts. Fuck, I spoke to soon. Here we go, someone tell Amy that I guess I love her deep-deep-deep-down. "I need to talk to you."

I'm breathing deeply, trying to get in as much of this drug-fused air as possible. "Oh, yeah?" I try to sound casual. I don't think it worked.

"Al's one of the best people I know, " she says. "And he's always looked out for me, sometimes _too_ much, I guess." Ah, I remember the notorious curse of the Potter brothers from Hogwarts. As soon as a bloke got within hugging distance of Lily, one or the other of the boys seemed to show up and scare them off before they could get so much as a 'Why, aren't you looking dashing tonight, Miss Potter!' out.

"The point is, it always came from a good place. And I think it's my time to re-pay that." She's looking at me seriously with her big, hazel eyes. In the same way that Harry and Al have literally the same eyes, she's a perfect match for James's. "Do you really love him, Issy?"

My heart's beating at about a thousand beats per minute and I'm pretty sure it's about to explode out of my chest at any second. Al and I had not prepared for this. I can't say no because then she'll want to know why the hell we're engaged to each other but I can't say yes because only twelve hours ago I was asking this question to someone else about myself.

But he didn't say yes.

Lily's looking at me, begging me to give her the answer she wants. So _that's_ what that face looks like.

"Yes."

She only looks slightly comforted by this, given how long it took me to reply.

"I do, Lily. I think Al's a great guy." Only half of that is a lie, and Lily seems somewhat satisfied, although I'm sure she's wondering if 'great guy' is the highest praise I have for my fiancé.

"Al's never exactly been lucky in love," she says. "I think he's always worried that people are just using him, you know, for the surname. I get it, I do. But I think he's just always been paranoid about it. Has he ever spoken to you about it?"

I don't know what to say, so I just shake my head half-heartedly.

"He seemed happy last night. So you must be good for him." She pauses, waiting for me to reply.

"Eh, that's good!"

Lily leans in closer to me across the bench and I slip my legs down. "Issy, I'd really like it if we could be friends."

Not for the first time in this conversation, I'm not exactly sure what to say. Look, it's not everyday that pretty, famous girls ask me if we can be friends. That's not exactly the usual way people make friends, is it? Usually it's just one too many firewhiskies in the pub one night, holding each other's hair back or crying together in the toilets and the next thing you know, you've made a friend for life.

"Sure," I say finally, and Lily looks very relieved. Not that I'm condoning living a lie or anything, but it is quite nice to have my presence valued this much. I could get used to being a pseudo-soon-to-be Potter. I suppose I'll just have to keep up a 'friendship' with Lily until the 'engagement' is over. Simple enough.

She beams and pulls me into a tight hug. Our bodies are moist and clammy from the shower and the steam so it's a rather wet, sticky hug. When we've prised our bodies apart, Lily suggests that we go to find Ginny. Stage one of the inquisition is over.

* * *

After an hour of lounging around in the spa, I feel that my imminent death is a lot less likely. Ginny and Lily are surprisingly easy to get along with. I guess it helps that I feel like I know them already, what with the innumerable articles I've read about them over the years. When it's nearing lunch-time, Lily leaves the sauna where we sitting to call her boyfriend, and Ginny asks me whether I fancy going for a swim.

We head through a golden arch in the main atrium into the pool room. The pool is a deep, whirling pool of a rainbow of colours. But somehow, they don't just turn into a brown sludge like my paints used to do when I mixed them together; the colours swirl around each other and seem to almost dance on the surface of the water.

"Excuse Lily," Ginny says as she lays a towel down on one of the loungers scattered around the pool. "Ever since she met Sebastian, they've been inseparable." I nod and lay my towel on the chair next to hers. "I'm sure you and Al were the same."

I laugh nervously. "Oh yeah." I guess we've been pretty inseparable in the past twenty-four hours.

"I have to say, I was surprised when he just sent a letter like that," she says, walking towards the pool and climbing down the steps into the swirling depths.

"Oh?" I remark, for lack of anything better to say. I have the horrible feeling that Ginny is purposely trying to catch me out, which is obviously ridiculous, but I'm still on edge.

"Al's always been the most open of our kids. It's James who I half expected to just turn up with a fiancé!"

I raise my eyebrows and smile. From the limited contact I've had with James over the past couple of days, I can totally see that.

"Al's more like me, I think, while James and Lily are both more like Harry."

"James does seem like a bit of a liability."

"You aren't wrong there. Although, Al can have his unpredictable moments."

Tell me about it, Ginny. "Yeah, I've noticed that."

"So you have a sister?" she asks.

"Oh yes," I say darkly. Ginny raises her eyebrows. "We're not the closest," I explain.

"Ah, well, I can understand that. I grew up with six brothers and it would definitely be a lie to say I was best friends with them all the time."

"Six? I don't even know what I'd do with six brothers. I'd probably end up killing one of them. At least then five would be more manageable," I laugh, but I see that Ginny's smile has faded slightly. Fuck, I remember suddenly from a History of Magic lesson that one of her brothers died during the war. I'm about to make an apology but Ginny speaks first.

"Well, let's just say that I knew that three children was plenty for me!"

I sigh, grateful that someone here is less socially awkward than me. We're reclining back against the side of the pool and I stretch back, feeling the waves rippling around my legs.

"It's so great here," I sigh, inhaling deeply and getting that gorgeous scent of lavender again.

"Isn't it?" Ginny agrees. "I could do with coming here everyday after work, to be honest."

"Agreed," I laugh. And then I remember that I don't actually have a job anymore. It's that same gutting feeling that keeps smacking me in the stomach. "Or, it would be," I mutter.

"So, you said you were interested in writing?" Ginny asks, clearly diverting the subject slightly.

"I think so," I say. "I've always liked that sort of thing."

"Well, I'm friends with the owner of 'The Quibbler', the magazine," she tells me. "Luna has an excellent apprenticeship programme. I could put you in touch, if you're interested?"

"That would be fantastic," I say.

Maybe things aren't all doom and gloom.

"Anything for one of the family," Ginny says, nudging my arm and smiling kindly at me.

Or perhaps they really, really are.

* * *

The boys join us in the dining room for lunch. They're all grown men, I suppose, but the way they're bickering over Quidditch scores seriously suggests otherwise.

"You lost, Albus, admit it!"

"I only lost because we had that old, deaf bloke on our team who couldn't hear me shouting to watch out for the bludger!"

"Yeah, but you also had Dad and people from _my_ team kept gawking at him, so technically you had an advantage. And you still lost."

"You lot cheated anyway!"

"Didn't!"

"Did!"

" _Mum!_ "

"Frankly, both of you are absolutely pathetic," Ginny says swiftly. She turns to me, rolls her eyes and whispers, " _Boys_."

I smirk back. "So you lost?" I say to Al as he sits down.

"I wasn't on the winning team this morning, no," he mutters grumpily, grabbing a bread roll from the middle of the table.

"That's one way of phrasing it," James grins, plonking himself down on my other side. "Alright, Fletcher?"

"Perfectly so, thanks, James."

"Have you had a nice morning?" Harry asks us.

"It was so lovely," Lily says, and begins to recall the various aspects of the spa to her dad. I'm trying to listen, but what Ginny said keeps coming back to me.

 _"_ _Anything for one of the family."_

Maybe Al and I have really taken things too far, I mean people will be expecting us to talk about plans, won't they? Wanting to know when we're actually going to tie the knot. But, then again, I don't have a job. I have qualifications which don't help me into anything in which I would be remotely interested. This apprenticeship could change everything, and I need Ginny's help to get it. But just thinking that is terrible, I guess. I push the salad on my plate around with my fork, barely touching it while the conversation moves around me.

"You okay, Issy?" Al murmurs to me. I look up and see him watching me, the brows above his green eyes furrowed in worry.

I try to smile. "Fine yeah, just not particularly hungry."

Al doesn't look like he believes me. "Let's go talk."

"Sure." I shrug, thinking that talking to Al about this can't do any harm.

"We're just going to go get some fresh air," Al tells his family, who are all wrapped up in talk about some new potions law. They nod and Lily tells me she'll come and find me before she heads back into the spa. We get up and walk away from the table. I glance back over my shoulder at the Potters as we leave the dining room, making sure that they're not suspicious. They're all still deep in conversation, apart from James, who's watching us go. His hazel eyes stare into mine and hold my gaze for a few seconds before I turn back and follow Al out. He pulls me around the corner from the doorway, so we're standing against the wall in the hotel's lobby.

"We need to talk," Al says. He looks uncomfortable and nervous, fiddling with his hands.

"What's up?"

"I'm not sure that this is such a great idea."

"What isn't?"

" _This_ ," he says, gesturing between the two of us. I frown at him, confused. "It's just, my dad was being so nice about it, and asking when we were going to get married, and stuff about you and… I just don't know whether I can lie to them, Issy. They're my _parents_."

"I know, Al. But what do you want to do about it now?" I'm not sure when I suddenly became the advocate for our 'relationship' when I've spent the last fifteen minutes at lunch feeling rather shit about it myself.

"I just don't know," he says. "Or, I do, I suppose. I should just go in there and tell them the truth. _We_ should."

My stomach flips. Of course, a part of me wants, and knows, that we should be honest with the Potters. But, if I do that, I sincerely doubt Ginny's going to recommend me for that apprenticeship. 'Ah yes, Luna, hire her: the girl who pretended to be engaged to my son. Very reliable, the epitome of a brilliant worker!' Not bloody likely.

And it's selfish, of course. And I feel like a terrible person, but before I can reflect on how appalling I am as a human being, I say, "I think it's best to leave it for now, Al. We just stick to the original plan; last it out five more days and then you just tell them we called off the engagement."

'After your mum's got me a job', I add in my head.

Al sighs and runs a hand through his black hair. "Maybe you're right, it would be awkward to screw everything up now. James would never let me hear the end of it."

"Right," I agree, nodding. "Besides, _obliviate_ is still an option."

Al laughs. "Thanks, Issy, for everything, you know."

My stomach twists with guilt and I smile weakly. "No problem."

And then Al pulls me into a tight hug. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this, but I hug him back.

"If it isn't the _golden couple_ ," a voice laughs, and we break apart like two guilty teenagers who have just been caught snogging behind a tapestry on the Transfiguration corridor. James is standing there.

The knot in my stomach pulls harder, and I don't know why.

"Dad's waiting for us to go back out," James tells Al, who squeezes my arm and whispers a 'thank-you' to me again. I try to meet his smile, but I think it turns out more like a grimace. Al walks back into the dining room to meet his dad but James turns around to face me. "Don't pull that face, Fletcher, if the wind changes you'll be stuck like that." He smirks again then he turns over his shoulder and follows his brother. I grimace harder at his back as he walks away.

* * *

"So, everything okay with you and Al?" Lily asks me. We're standing in a changing room a few minutes later, putting on robes ready to head into a massage. Even while feeling this terrible about everything that's happening, I'm excited.

"Yeah, it's fine," I tell her, but I don't even manage to convince myself of what I'm saying.

She turns to face me and outs her hand on my shoulder. "I meant what I said earlier, Issy. I do want to be your friend, and you can talk me."

"You actually want to hear me talk about my relationship with your brother?"

"Well, nothing too detailed…" she trails off, then smiles. "So, is it all okay?"

I sigh. A part of me wishes I could tell Lily, I guess because I have none of my friends here who I could talk to about it. But then, I think better of it and nod confidently. "Yep, we're great."

It's only a little white lie.

We head into the massage room, which, of course, smells amazing. There are two white beds and two witches wearing white robes waiting for us. Ginny left to play Quidditch, leaving just the least athletically inclined of us in the spa.

I lie down, and the witch, who tells me her name is Helga, removes my robe and begins to pour a potion over my back. It's a soothing, tingling sensation. Her fingers work the substance into my back and my body physically relaxes. Lily's telling me about her boyfriend, and how she wishes how he would be as forward as Al and propose after less than six months.

The tingling on my back is spreading all over my body and I can feel it creeping up my neck. I cough slightly, trying to get rid of the feeling of my throat swelling. I push myself up and feel Helga jump back in surprise. Lily and Helga's voices fill my ears but I can't make out any particular words. My vision is blurring around the edges and my throat is completely closed over.

The last thing I think I see is the marble floor coming towards me.

* * *

 _ **A/N- A slightly shorter chapter- I'm sorry! And a bit of a filler, I know- but hopefully there was enough juicy stuff in there! What are you guys thinking about Al and Issy? James and Issy hmmm? Lily? Let me know!**_

 _ **I have exams coming up so updates may be slower- apologies!**_

 _ **Alice**_


	4. touché

When I come to, my head is pounding, and my throat feels like it's been caked in concrete from the inside. I try to open my eyes but a blinding white light forces them shut with a sharp stinging sensation.

"Hello?" I moan blearily, attempting to sit up.

There's a chuckle and then a voice calmly replies, "Hello."

"Where am I?" I ask, trying to prise open my eyes and adjust them to the bright room.

"Heaven," the voice replies placidly.

For a second I'm panicked. "What?" I whip my eyes open, ignoring the shooting pain that goes through my head as a result of this. I'm lying in a white bed, in an incredibly dazzling room and there's a man with dark hair sitting in a chair next to me, grinning at me mischievously. " _James_?"

He raises his eyebrows. "No, it is I: Wizard God." Then he smirks. "I take on the appearance of the most attractive person you've seen in the past twenty-four hours."

I (painfully) roll my eyes. "Nice try, but I distinctly remember looking in a mirror yesterday."

"Touché."

I pull myself up into a seated position on the bed and try to take in my surroundings. The last thing I remember is being in the spa, about to have a massage with Lily, and then everything seeming to close in and my world going black. And now, I'm somewhere inhumanly light in a bed with ridiculously crisp sheets.

James is watching me, clearly finding me trying to place myself funny. "You're in Mungo's," he tells me finally.

"Why?" I ask. I seriously must be the first person to wake up in hospital and not have a clue how they got there. Apart from the people in the 'Memory Loss and Restoration Department', I suppose.

"I think someone said something about an allergic reaction?" James says. "Mum knows more, I think."

"Shit." I've had a nut allergy since I was a child, which has only got worse as I got older. But I really don't remember eating any nuts, and the only reactions I've had in the past came on pretty quickly after.

"Lily saved your life, apparently," James continues. "Whipped up some kind of antidote at the spa, then and there, and then they brought you straight here."

I feel a pang of affection for her and take a second to send my thanks to the real Wizard God that she was there. "Where is she?"

"Her, Mum and Dad went to get some food. With _Al_ ," he says, emphasising the last word. Fuck, probably a bit strange that I haven't asked about my fiancé yet.

"Oh yeah, was wondering where he was," I say weakly, forcing a smile. James doesn't look like he buys it.

"He couldn't think of any allergies you had," James tells me, narrowing his eyes, trying to read me. Contrary to current popular belief, I'm not much of an actress, and I'm praying he won't see straight through me. Although, I'm not quite sure why he seems so suspicious.

"Must have forgotten to mention it!" I titter, which doesn't seem to satisfy him at all. Then trying desperately to change the subject, I ask, "Do you have any water?" It's not too radical a diversion seeings as my throat literally feels like a goblin is sticking a bony finger down there.

Without speaking, and holding my gaze, James takes out his wand, conjures up a glass and produces a spout of water. He hands it to me and I gulp it down, only now realising just how thirsty I am too.

"What time is it?" I ask, filling the silence. I look down at the sheets on the bed, determined not to stare back at James in the way he's looking at me.

"Nearly nine o'clock. The others had all been here for a few hours so I said I'd stay with you while they ate."

"Thanks," I smile.

He shakes his head. "Well I couldn't just leave you alone."

A healer suddenly bustles over, noticing I'm awake. She offers me a potion for the pain in my throat, which I gratefully take and drink in one, long swig. She then asks for a list of any known allergies I have, and I explain about the nuts. Someone else then cries out in the ward, a few beds down from my own so she hurries over to deal with them.

"So," James says with a smirk, "allergic to _nuts_ , hmm? That must be an inconvenience." He wiggles his eyebrows.

I stare at him for a few seconds and then, despite everything, I laugh, harder than I've done for ages. The potion which soothed my throat a few minutes ago is made redundant by the hoarse way I'm snorting. When I'm finally done, my eyes are starting to water and I wipe them with my hand, still giggling. James is looking at me like I'm a crazy person, and I suppose that's a pretty fair assessment of the way I'm acting.

"Okay, so I know I'm _funny_ but…" he trails off and gives me a bewildered look, which only sets me off again. I'm not sure exactly what I'm finding so funny, I think it's partly just a release of the tension I've been holding in for the past few days.

"I'm sorry," I say, steadying my breath. "It's been a long forty-eight hours."

"Right." He pauses. "Everything alright?" I don't know what to say, so I just nod. "Because you seemed pretty upset the other night, Fletcher."

"Oh, well yeah, I'm sorry about that."

"Don't be sorry, you idiot. But you okay?" His hazel eyes are furrowed in concern. There's something about the way he's watching me that makes me want to laugh and cry in equal measure. I also have a desperate, burning desire to tell him everything.

But I can't.

So I swallow and take a deep breath. "Yeah, just a bit over-emotional."

"Well, hey," he says, "I think emotions are great and everything. But crying alone in the middle of night when your fiancé is literally in the next room seems a little outside the bracket of ordinary."

What an excellent summary for this whole situation.

"Did you talk to Al about it?" he asks. Then he shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose, looking away from me. "Nah, actually, you don't have to answer that. It's none of my business."

"No, James look," I start, and he looks into my eyes again. But I don't know how to finish it, so I just sit there, in the bed, staring at him. He looks like he hasn't shaved for a few days, the dark stubble around his mouth becoming more prominent.

His hand finds mine, which is gripping the edge of the bed and for a second I think he'g going to lean over and kiss me.

Before I can stop myself, I'm whispering, "Look, James, there's something I need to tell you."

And then a voice from the other side of the ward cuts me off. "Issy! You're awake!" It's Lily, running towards me, flanked by the rest of her family. Her dark red air is bouncing around her and her hazel eyes bear exactly the same look of concern as her brother's. James drops my hand and if it weren't for the slightly clammy feel still present on my fingertips, I wouldn't be sure he had even held it at all.

Lily pulls me into a tight hug. "How are you feeling?"

I manage a smile. "Yeah, okay thanks. James told me what you did, I seriously can't thank you enough."

Lily shakes her head. "It was nothing. Nut allergy, right?" I nod and she continues, "Thought so. Victoire said that there was almond oil in the potion they used for the massage." She then turns to Al, who's walked up and is standing on the other side of my bed. "You were supposed to tell us about her allergies, Al!"

I glance up at him; he looks thoroughly uncomfortable, his skin paler than usual and his black hair even more rumpled than usual. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"I didn't tell him," I interrupt. I feel awful letting him take the fall for this. "It was stupid of me not to mention it, I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," Ginny says, echoing her older son's earlier words. "Are you sure you're okay? Has the healer been to check up on you?"

"Yeah, she said to just get some rest."

"Oh, of course," she says. "We'll be waiting upstairs if you need us. Is there anyone you want us to contact?"

I don't even want to imagine trying to explain this situation to my mum. She wanted me to come here for an experimental treatment that claimed to completely get rid of allergies when I was at Hogwarts. I refused, frankly not wanting to subject myself to something that labelled itself as 'experimental'. Ever since then, she's been pretty unsympathetic every time I can't eat something because of the nuts in it. Besides, I don't really feel like outlining exactly why I was enjoying a massage with Lily Potter in Penzance to her either.

I shake my head, and Ginny and Harry leave, after giving me a supportive hug each. Lily says she'll go to talk to the potioneers at the hospital and see whether they know when I'll be released. James hasn't said anything since his family walked in, and I'm uncomfortably aware of how he's pulled away from me, scooting the chair backwards.

"I'll be going then," he mutters after a few painful seconds, with Al standing silently next to me.

"Thanks for being here," I call after him. It even sound pathetic to me, and he clearly doesn't think it warrants a response, as he continues to stalk out of the room without looking back at me.

"I'm so sorry, Issy," Al says, collapsing into the seat on the other side of me. He runs a hand through his dark hair tentatively.

"It's fine," I tell him honestly. "It's my own stupid fault, and I'm right as rain anyway!"

"About what happened before," he says, shifting his body so we're facing each other straight on. "I think you're right, we should just finish off this week."

"You do?" In all honestly, I'd almost forgotten about the discussion we'd had before Lily and I left for the massage. Dragging out this whole situation for the sake of getting an internship seems pretty ridiculous right now, I guess waking up in a hospital bed does that for you.

"You don't?" Al sounds confused. "I thought that's what you wanted."

"No, it is," I say. "If that's what you want."

"Well, it was just Dad was asking me about you when we were upstairs and I realised it was just so easy, you know, talking about you." He looks up at me with his big, green eyes and their expression is almost pleading. I break my gaze and stare back at the sheets, unsure of what to say.

"Look, Al," I start, but he cuts me off.

"Let's just do the rest of this week. Just do it, you know." He's talking quickly and seems almost breathless. I'm a bit freaked out, if I'm being honest.

"Okay," I say slowly. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, yeah?" He's nodding furiously, his eyes wide. "I'm a bit tired, Al. I think I'm going to try to get some sleep."

"Oh, sure yeah," he says, standing up. "I guess I'll go and find the others."

I force a yawn and roll over, my eyes shut tight. I'm pretty sure Al is still standing there for a good few minutes, but I can't carry on this conversation right now. So like the mature adult I am, I lie as still as possible and pretend to be asleep.

At some point, I must fall asleep for real, because the next time I open my eyes, the ward is dark and silent. I sit up in the bed and reach to my bedside table for the glass of water James produced for me.

James.

It's crazy, insane and just outright ridiculous. I've been spending time with the Potters for one day. One sodding day and it's just such a mess. I don't even want to think about what Al was trying to imply earlier in a strikingly similar way to how I don't want to remember the conversation I had with James before that. Or how when he was looking into my eyes, all I wanted was to lean over and kiss him.

I'm probably still upset about Mark. There's a pang I get in my stomach whenever I think about him too. But, as far as I'm concerned, I've hopefully seen the back of him. The biggest part of me knows I deserve a thousand times better than a man like that. Yet there's a small part of me that wants to climb out of this bed, walk down to the hospital lobby and floo back into our flat. Crawl up into bed with him and just laugh about something Janelle the receptionist said at work until we fall asleep.

And then I remember what happened the last time I wanted to do that with Mark. I walked in and found him already in bed with someone else. So surely there's nothing wrong with wanting to kiss James. It's probably a rebound. He and Mark look pretty similar: they both have the tall, dark and handsome thing going on. But it _is_ wrong. Because, as far as James knows, I'm engaged to his brother.

 _His brother._

I feel ridiculous and melodramatic, like I'm a guest star on some kind of muggle soap opera. I bet I'm the type to get killed off after a season, probably get mowed down by a lorry or something. I like to think they'd refer back to me in future episodes, though. "Remember crazy Issy- you don't want to end up like her," they'd say to each other.

I finish the rest of the water, and look up and down the ward. There's no sign of movement. Then I spot a note on the bedside table.

 _Issy,_

 _Lily and James have gone back to the hotel. Me, Mum and Dad are upstairs. The healers have given you the all-clear so you're okay to come up whenever you're awake. Lily grabbed you some clothes, they're on the seat._

 _Al_

Shit, I must have been brought in here just wearing my bikini, which somehow makes this situation even more awkward. Sure enough, on the chair where James was sitting earlier, Lily's left me a t-shirt, underwear and a pair of jeans. I grab the clothes and pad through the dark ward, until I find a toilet located in a hallway. I change quickly in a cubicle and throw the paper hospital gown I was wearing into a bin. Looking in the mirrors at the sinks, I splash some cold water on my face and tuck my dark hair behind my ears. It's looking rather lank and stringy and my face is pale.

Upstairs, the Potters are sitting in the café, Ginny and Harry flicking through _The Prophet_ and Al intently stirring a mug of coffee. They also look weary and worried. A pang of guilt floods through me.

"I'm sorry," I say, as I approach.

"Don't be silly, dear," Ginny says, standing up and walking towards me. "The healer said that you might suffer some drowsiness from the potions they had to give you."

"How are you feeling?" Harry asks.

I smile as brightly as I can. "Absolutely fine. What time is it?"

"About six," Ginny tells me.

"Oh Merlin, I'm sorry." They must have been awake the whole night. "You shouldn't have stayed."

They shake off my apologies once more and we head downstairs to floo back to the hotel. Harry asks me whether I'm sure I wouldn't rather go home, but considering I don't have a home right now, I say I'm fine to go back to the hotel. Only I conveniently leave out the part where the alternative would be curling up behind a dumpster.

We're walking through the hospital lobby, which is as grand and impressive as ever, when Al puts his arm around my waist. He smiles at me and I look back at him, confused. Ginny and Harry both look far too tired to take notice of whether Al and I are acting 'in-love' enough so I have no idea why he's doing this. Well I do have an idea, but let's not get into that.

It's then that I hear an all-too familiar voice say, "Isadora? What are you doing here?"

I turn to face a woman of about twenty-three looking incredulously at me. "Oh, hi, Amy!" I try to sound casual, but it definitely doesn't come out like that.

Amy folds her arms and raises her eyebrows, looking like she's about to scold me for something. Even though she's only eighteen months older than me, Amy's always been very, ahem, stern with me. "Well, are you going to tell me what you're doing in a hospital in the early hours of the morning with…" she trails off and her mouth forms a little 'o' shape when she sees who I'm with.

"It's a long story," I say. Ginny and Harry have turned back and are standing, waiting to be introduced. "Eh, Harry, Ginny, Al, this is my sister, Amy. Amy these are the Potters." I group them together because it's not as if she really needs an introduction anyway.

They make small talk for a couple of minutes before I interject. "Amy, they've been up all night, let them leave now." Harry laughs awkwardly but I'm sure he's grateful. I know I would be grateful to get out of speaking to Amy. "I'll meet you guys in a few minutes." Al looks like he might stay behind, but thinks better of it and follows him parents into the emerald flames.

"What the hell was that about?" Amy says, rounding on me as soon as they've disappeared. "Are you dating Albus Potter? What about Mark? Where is Mark?"

"Oh, yes, my darling sister, I'm very well thank-you, how are you? Just fancied a quick trip to the hospital in the wee hours," I say sarcastically.

"Oh yeah! Why _are_ you here?" she asks, evidently having forgotten where we are.

"I had a reaction to nuts," I tell her.

She smacks me on the arm. "Idiot! You _know_ you're allergic, why did you eat nuts for?"

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Does she think I have some kind of death wish? Although, if life gets much more complicated, I wouldn't rule it out.

"So?" Alas, the nuts couldn't distract her.

"Look, Amy, it's really complicated." I sigh, unsure of exactly how much to tell her. On the one hand, she _is_ my sister, but on the other hand she's Amy.

She lets out a single laugh. "Your life can't be that dramatic, Issy."

Oh, sister dear, how wrong you are.

Realising she's not going to be easily perturbed, I decide to give an as abridged version of the whole fiasco as possible. "Mark and I broke up, Al's an old friend so I'm staying with his family while they're on holiday and I had a reaction to some almond oil so I had to come here. Happy?"

"You broke up?" She sounds genuinely concerned, it's slightly disconcerting.

"Yeah, it's okay, though." The pain in my chest suggests differently, but I don't really want to get into that with Amy right now.

"I didn't know you were close with the Potters."

"Neither did I," I mutter darkly.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just please don't tell Mum, okay? I need to tell her about everything in my own time."

Amy nods. "Okay. But you have to tell me exactly what's happened at some point. I _am_ your sister." Like I could forget. "My shift starts in a couple of minutes so I've got to run."

"I'll see you soon." There's an award pause where neither of us are sure whether we should hug. Amy eventually squeezes my arm, before turning around in a flourish of emerald robes and heading across the lobby.

I practically collapse into the fireplace, say "West Way Spa and Spring" with as much conviction as I can muster and let the green flames whisk me away.

* * *

I spend most of the next day sleeping, which has many a perk. Firstly, I don't have to see Al or think about the weird way he was acting as we left the hospital. Secondly, I don't have see James and actually force myself to think about how I feel about him. Thirdly, I can pretty much avoid the Potters as a collective clan, and not be subjected to a million and one questions about how I'm feeling. Not that I don't appreciate everything they've done for me, but it really is emotionally easier to just lie in this incredibly comfortable bed in a blanket cocoon and ignore my problems. Perhaps it's not a 'mature' or 'reasonable' way to handle a situation, but, for now, it's working.

It's not until about eight o'clock that evening that Al tentatively knocks on the door, and I call him in. I don't think he's slept at all in the past forty-eight hours, and even in this low-light I can see his exhaustion in his face. There are dark circles around his eyes and as he crosses the room towards me, I can see his hands shaking.

"You need to sleep. You look awful," I say to him, my voice cracking from lack of use.

"Hello to you too," he whispers back, grinning. He leans against the bed frame, looking at me wrapped up in the blanket. "Comfy?"

"The comfiest," I tell him. "But seriously, you should have the bed now."

"I'm fine," he says, but the yawn he tries to suppress suggests otherwise.

" _Sure_ ," I say, sarcastically. He laughs but still doesn't make any movement. I crawl out of the bed, silently saying a goodbye to my temporary paradise, and gesture towards the now empty space. "In. Or I'll literally _stupefy_ you and put you in there myself."

Conceding, he climbs into the bed and pulls the duvet over himself. "It smells like you in here," he murmurs. I try to force a laugh but nothing comes out. "Sorry. That was creepy."

I sigh and take his vacated position by the bed-post. "Not creepy," I say, "but I think you should get some sleep now, Al."

I'm beginning to leave the room when I hear him whisper, "Issy?" I turn over my shoulder and face him. The only part of him visible is the top of his head, where his messy black hair stands out against the white bed sheets. He looks so tiny and fragile, so I walk back towards him.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry if I- you know," he starts.

"It's fine," I say, biting my lip. I don't want to get into this now. All I want to do is last through this week.

"No, wait. It's just, I know you're probably thinking… well I don't know what you're thinking-" you and me both, Albus- "but I just need to explain. With Emily, she was great, she really was. But the whole time there was just this nagging thought like, what if she doesn't actually like me for _me_ , you know. What if she only likes me because I'm Albus Potter rather than just Al?" He trails off, and I sigh and kneel down next to the bed. I loop my fingers through the lace detailing on the bedsheets and look up at him.

"Well, I think 'just Al' is pretty great," I tell him. For a second, I think I should reach up my hand and comb it through his hair. It's something I remember my dad doing when I was really little and I'd had a bad dream. But Al carries on before I can.

"But you're different, Issy," he whispers. He has the pleading look in his eyes again.

"Go to sleep," I murmur back. "I'll see you in the morning."

He looks like he might protest, but his eyes start to droop shut, so I tiptoe out of the bedroom and shut the door quietly behind me.

It's when I see the kitchen that the gnawing pain in my stomach kicks in. I'm halfway through a liquorice wand from the mini-fridge when I hear a door click open. Spinning round, I see James come in through the main entrance. He's dressed in a tight grey t-shirt and jeans, and I'm suddenly uncomfortably aware that I'm wearing my old Wimborne Wasps pyjamas. He pales slightly on meeting my eye and starts walking towards his bedroom quickly, not looking at me.

"James," I call after him, and he pauses, his hand hovering above the door-handle. "I'm sorry about earlier."

He turns around slowly, and finally peers up at me. "I don't think it's a good idea for me to be talking to you, Fletcher." The way he's looking at me isn't like how it was in the hospital, or the other night after I spoke to Mark. It's more disdainful.

"Why not?" I ask. There's a thick feeling in my throat, which I swallow down.

He glances towards Al's bedroom door and then looks pointedly back at me. "I think you know why."

"I can explain, James."

"Explain what?" He's walking towards me, his eyes wide with concern.

It's like my body is being torn into two pieces. Half of me is screaming to tell James everything, that he'd understand while the other half of me is thinking about the way Al looked when I left him in the bedroom, delicate and vulnerable. Honestly, I'm not quite sure why I've ever thought that a situation in my life has been complicated before. This literally trumps it all.

"Nothing," I finally mutter. James's whole body visibly droops and there's a twisting feeling in my stomach.

"Fine," he says coldly, turning away and storming across the room.

I'm left, leaning against the countertop, as the door slams behind James with an echoing bang.

* * *

 _ **A/N: Oh wow. I'm sorry about that. Anyways, I'm so happy to be getting this up before my exams start because there's probably going to be a bit of a break now before the next update. I'd love to know what you think with a quick reviews! Al and Issy? James and Issy? Amy?**_

 _ **Thank you for all of the support I've received so far- it means the world!**_

 _ **Alice xx**_

 ** _edit- I've been informed that this story has been uploaded to to the site hexrpg without my permission. Please don't do that! But thank you to the 99.9% of people who are nothing but supportive!_**


	5. don't we?

Being friends with Lily Potter is surprisingly easy. Not that I would consider it hard to befriend a funny, chirpy and frankly obnoxiously friendly girl under normal circumstances, but there's just something about Lily which makes it impossible to dislike her. Over the past few days, I've spent countless hours lounging around with her listening while she tells me about her boyfriend, her job, and anything else that takes her fancy. One of the main benefits is that she doesn't require much response to carry out these conversations; an occasional murmur of agreement or assurance seems to do the trick most of the time.

But, of course, the primary benefit from spending so much time with Lily is that I don't have to spend as much time with people who _aren't_ Lily, namely Albus or James. I've spent the last couple of days avoiding them as far as possible. Well, I've been avoiding Al. James doesn't need me to stay away from him, he's doing that to _me_ perfectly well on his own. Every time I walk into a room with him in it, he glares down at the ground, his hazel eyes fierce and unwavering, and then after a few awkward minutes, makes an excuse to leave. That is, unless we're the only people in the room, then he just storms away without any words at all. There's a little part of me that hates this, that hates the fact that James and I couldn't even begin spending time together at all before it became so painful to be around each other. But it's okay, the current main priority is making it through the week.

Well, that and dodging Al. Since he basically poured his heart out to me the day after we got to the hospital, being around the younger Potter brother is perhaps even more excruciating than the older. He's tried to talk to me about it a few times, but before he can, I blurt something out about needing to help Lily or having to reply to a letter from Priyanka. Now, three days later, he's all but given up, which I guess is a positive and a negative in equal amounts. I'm glad that I no longer have to dip into my ever-decreasing pool of excuses to dart away from him, but it also means that there's this huge hippogriff in the room whenever we're alone together, which is quite a lot considering we're still having to share a bedroom.

I'm lying back, stretching out my bare legs in one of the baths in the main body of the spa, the rose coloured water lapping around me, mulling over all of this. There's only three more days, I'm telling myself, three measly days and then I'm done with this whole situation. I sigh and bring my legs into my body, resting them on the side-bench in the bath and wrapping my arms around them.

"Everything okay?" Lily asks me. She's running the tips of her fingers through the water, creating tiny whirlpools on the surface.

I nod and sit up, tucking my hair behind my ears. "Sorry, I was miles away."

Lily smiles. "You do that a lot, you know," she says.

"Do what?"

"Go off in your own little world. You get this glazed expression on your face. Like this." She lowers her head and stares into the water, her hazel eyes bulging. She looks like someone trying to hold in a fart.

"I do not!" I cry indignantly, although my head was pretty much in that exact position a few seconds earlier.

"You do!" Lily laughs, resuming the position but with more intensity.

"I. Do. Not," I tell her, annunciating each word with a splash that leaves her red hair plastered to her face.

She raises her eyebrows and begins cupping water in her hands. "Oh? So you want to play dirty, Fletcher?"

"Oh, _Lily_ ," I exclaim, flashing her my best bedroom eyes, "I thought you'd never ask."

She responds by chucking a handful of water into my face so I flick some back at her and, before I know it, we're screaming and dunking each other under the water, all our hair completely wet through. An older lady walks past the bath, shaking her head and muttering something about them "Letting any old riffraff in." Lily leans out from around my thrashing arms to shout back to the lady that her cousin actually owns the place so she can stick her riffraff up her-. But we never find out where she can stick it, because I dunk Lily under the surface once more. She comes up a few seconds later coughing and rubbing the water out of her eyes.

"You really _do_ play dirty."

I shoot her an exaggerated wink. "You like that, you should see me on dry land."

Lily snorts and looks at me fondly. "I really like you, Issy."

I'm a bit taken aback but I smile across at her. "I like you too, Lil."

She frowns. "Now, see that's just cruel."

"What?"

"I said I ' _really_ ' like you, and you just said 'like'."

I roll my eyes. "My sincerest apologies."

"I'll think about forgiving you." She turns to me, and looks up at me carefully. "But seriously, Is, I'm glad that you're going to be my sister-in-law."

My stomach twists and I look down at the water again. Stupid Lily being stupidly nice. "Me too," I finally manage.

Lily smiles and pulls me into a hug. "Shall we go get lunch?"

I nod and we climb out of the bath. On our way back to the changing room, Lily stops to stick her tongue out at the lady from before who scowls as we run into the changing rooms, giggling.

*

The rest of the family are already sat around our usually dining table by the time Lily and I arrive. Lily's wrapping the ends of her hair around her wand, trying out some new spell she read about in _Witch Weekly_ that's supposed to eliminate frizz 'for good'. James and Harry are sat on one side of the table, arguing loudly about something, food spewing out of their mouths as they try to shout over each other. Ginny and Al, on the other hand, are leaning in closely to each other, intently discussing something, Al opens his mouth to reply, but Ginny glances up and makes eye contact with me. She lays a hand on her son's arm and Al stops talking, looking up at me and Lily instead. If I'd blinked, I would have missed it, but in that moment, I'm sure they were talking about me.

Oblivious to this, Lily walks ahead of me and plonks herself down next to Al, still twirling her long red hair around her wand. I follow and sit next to her at the only seat left on the round table, uncomfortably aware of James shuffling away from me on my other side.

"That's an… interesting technique, Lily," Al says, eyeing his sister's wandwork suspiciously.

Lily puts her wand down on the table and begins helping herself to salad. "It's supposed to get rid of frizz. I needed it after _someone_ got my hair wet." She looks at me pointedly and I stick my tongue out at her.

"And clearly _mine_ is dry as a bone," I deadpan, gesturing at my own damp hair.

"That's different," Lily pouts. "Yours is short, it won't look so bad if it dries naturally."

"Well," Harry interjects, "if it's any consolation, Lil, I think your hair looks beautiful however you style it."

Lily raises her eyebrows at him. "No offence, Dad, but I'm not about to start taking hair advice from you."

"Uh, why not?" Harry asks, clapping his hand to his chest in mock offence. "I'll have you know, I won _Witch Weekly's_ 'Best Haired Bachelor' three times in my glory days."

James nods furiously. "Yeah! And when you insult _his_ hair, you're basically insulting mine."

"And mine!" Al chips in.

"Yeah," James laughs. "And hey- at least we're not _gingers_." Lily flicks a piece of bread at him, which misses and lands in my lap instead.

"Yeah, Lily. You big ginger minger!" Al yells and his sister looks at him disgustedly.

"Too far, Albus," she says, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, that's a bit weird, mate," James agrees, smirking at his younger brother.

Al gives them both the middle finger, earning him a smack on the shoulder from his mother and returns to his lunch, laughing. Not for the first time since I've been here, I feel like an intruder. I'm sitting at the table with the family, a part of the conversation to an extent, and yet if I wasn't here, everything would be exactly the same. I busy myself with eating the salmon that's appeared on my plate, picking at it as if every mouthful needs to be constructed with absolute precision.

"Oh, Issy?" Al says suddenly, after a couple of minutes of everyone eating in silence. "A letter came to the room for you." While I'm trying to think who could want to be sending me a letter right now, and pushing away the little bit of me that hopes it's Mark, Al produces a folded-up envelope from his pocket.

I wince as I see the familiar curly handwriting on the cream paper, because it's not Mark. Oh no, this is much, much worse. I take it from him and shove it hastily in the back pocket of my jeans. I can feel James eyeing me carefully while I do this, so I force a smile and resume eating perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

"Who is it?" Lily asks, through a mouthful of baked potato.

" _Lily_ ," Ginny hisses, "don't be so nosey." But Lily ignores her mother and keeps staring at me curiously.

"Oh." I swallow hard." Just my mother."

Harry frowns slightly and looks across at me. "Do we know your mother?"

"I'm not sure. Romilda Vane?" Mum reverted back to her maiden name during my last few years at Hogwarts. She said she liked it better than Fletcher anyway. _"It's just more_ unique _, darling. Any old nobody can be called 'Fletcher'."_

Harry slams his glass and water down and starts coughing. "Sorry," he splutters, "went down the wrong way. Romilda Vane? Wow."

" _Harry_ ," Ginny scolds, in the exact tone of voice she was using on her daughter a few minutes ago. Harry looks at me a little sheepishly, but I smile warmly.

"That's my general reaction to her too," I tell him with a wry smile.

"Isn't she the one who tried to poison Uncle Ron?" Lily asks bluntly.

"Nah, that was Draco Malfoy," James corrects, thrusting around a forkful of pork pie.

"You're both wrong," Al interrupts. "It was Voldemort _really_."

Ginny shakes her head, looking disparagingly at her children. "Ignore my… offspring."

"How is she anyway?" Harry asks me brightly.

I cock my head. "Well, she hasn't changed much by the sounds of things." Harry laughs. "Actually, I should probably go and see what she wants."

I stand up and tell Lily that I'll meet her in a few minutes. And then, realising that it probably seems a bit odd that I've barely acknowledged Al though the whole meal, I squeeze his shoulder as I walk past him and out of the dining room. When I'm in the lobby, where Al and I stood a few days ago, I pull the letter from my pocket and smooth out the envelope with my fingers. "Here goes nothing," I mutter, opening it up. My mother isn't a particularly sentimental person, so the majority of the time I get a letter from her, it usually means I've fucked up in some way.

 _Darling,_ it begins. That's another thing about her, she practically refuses to call me by my actual name. It's only ever ' _darling'_ , usually said a bit condescendingly.

' _Darling,_  
 _Amy wrote to my yesterday telling me that she saw you at St Mungo's because of a nut-related reaction. Didn't I tell you that we should we have sent you for that treatment? Susannah's daughter did it and she's never been in Mungo's since. Did you know that? I do wish you would have let me help you, darling._  
 _But, onto more pressing matters. Amy tells me that you were there on the arm of none other than Albus Potter! I'd have thought you could have spared a minute to tell your old mother the exciting news? But no, I'll just be sitting here wistfully reading through the_ Prophet _, and one day, I'll probably read an article about you getting married to Potter in a hideous wedding dress because you didn't let me help you choose one, or even tell me about the wedding. How will you feel then, darling?_  
 _But, I digress. What happened to Mark? Although I wasn't his biggest fan, I did think that you two made a good couple. But I suppose Albus does have lovely eyes. I hope the grandchildren inherit his._  
 _Anyway, darling, I'm hoping you'll find time soon in your busy, busy schedule to fill me in on everything; your life does seem rather dramatic at the moment. Although, I do have some rather exciting news of my own to tell you! I hope you'll be as excited for me as I am for you._  
 _Let's see each other soon, darling,_  
 _Mum'_

By the time I've finished reading Mum's letter, my eyes have pretty much rolled into the back of my head. I swear, that woman is a walking satire. And Amy? Amy 'I promise I won't tell Mum, you can talk to me- I _am_ your sister after all' Fletcher is a lying cow. I'm not sure why I ever doubted that. Deciding I may as well get the inevitably painful response over with, I cross the lobby (narrowly avoiding bumping into the lady from the spa we 'befriended' earlier) and approach the front desk. A youngish boy of about eighteen is sorting through papers. His rugged blonde hair and blue eyes look familiar, but I can't say exactly where I know him from.

"Uh, hi," I say, stepping in front of the desk and trying to catch the boy's attention. He looks up at me and frowns slightly, as if trying to place me too.

"Isadora, right?" he says slowly and then nods, his blonde hair bouncing. "You were Gryffindor prefect when I was in third year." I must look at him blankly because he continues, "I'm Louis Weasley."

"Of course you are!" I hit myself on the forehead. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here," he says, in a tone which suggests he wants to add _Duh_ to the end of that sentence.

"Funnily enough I'd worked that one out." I nod to him standing behind the desk.

Louis grins. "My sister owns this place. Pretty cool, right?"

I glance up and I'm struck again by just how pretty the hotel is. It looks like there's no ceiling at all, like the building just keeps going up and up, eventually fading into the colour of a summer sky. "Pretty cool," I agree with a nod.

"So, you okay?" Louis asks.

I shake my head, returning to the task at hand. Sorting out my family. "D'you have any parchment? Like for writing letters?"

Louis nods and reaches up to a shelf behind him. He puts down a few sheets of parchment in front of me. "Perfect, like for writing letters." He says this last bit in a high-pitched voice, mocking me. I pull a face at him as I move down the desk slightly, finding a space to write. I remember now why Louis looks so familiar. Despite only being a third year when I became a prefect, I would always catch him out of bed during my night rounds, usually accompanied by girls, alcohol, cigarettes or d) all of the above.

I grab a quill from a pot and chew the end of it, thinking about what to say.

 _'Amy,_  
 _You're a real piece of work, you know that? One thing I asked you to do: don't tell Mum, and you couldn't even keep your mouth shut for a day. I wouldn't do that to you and you know it._  
 _Isadora_  
 _P.S- whilst you were blabbing to Mum, did you happen to find out what her secret news is?_  
 _P.P.S- since you're so in to sharing other people's secrets, you can clue me into that too.'_

I read over the letter to my sister, deciding it sounds pissed off enough to let her know she's royally screwed up, and then fold it over. I then take a new sheet and begin fervently writing again.

 _'Mum,_  
 _I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, we're not really doing the whole 'telling people' thing yet, and I specifically asked Amy not to open her big fat gob._  
 _Anywho, as and when I do get married, I will most definitely take you dress shopping with me and you can pick it out for me, sparing you the humiliation of having things written about me insinuating a poor sense of style. I know how disappointing that would be for you._  
 _You've got me intrigued about the big secret. Now mine's out of the bag, do you want to fill me in?_  
 _I'll let you know when I'm around soon,_  
 _Isadora'_

I write my name in nice big letters, just in case Mum _has_ actually forgotten what it is, and take the two letters back to Louis.

"All done?"

I nod. "Yep." He flicks his wand at them and they zoom off into a room located just off the lobby.

"They'll be sent out by this evening," he tells me. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

I laugh and he shoots me a confused look. "I'm sorry," I snort, "I just can't take you seriously."

He stands up straighter and gives me a pompous smirk. "I'll have you know, I'm highly professional."

"Days of gallivanting around in the wee hours and hooking up behind portraits behind you then?"

Louis's eyes twinkle. "Between nine and five every weekday they are, yes."

I throw my hand across my chest and beam proudly at him. "All grown up."

I turn to walk back into the dining room and I'm met face to face with Ginny. It never ceases to amaze me how good she still looks; I hope I look like her when I'm older. She also still has a good sense of dress: where my mother still maintains she can wear thigh-high boots, Ginny has accepted that hers probably shouldn't roam above the knee anymore. She's wearing brown boots today, tucked into blue skinny jeans and a floral blouse. I smile up at her brightly, but she doesn't quite manage to meet my expression.

"Shall we go back in?" I ask, gesturing towards the dining room.

Ginny presses her lips together and glances back. "Actually, I was hoping we could go for a walk together?" It's definitely a question, but probably one which I can't say no to, so I just nod my head and let Ginny slip her arm through mine. I know she used to be a professional Quidditch player and everything, but I was definitely not expecting her to be this strong. She practically drags me through the french doors at the side of the lobby which extend out onto a veranda. It's early November so there's a definite chill in the air, but somehow none of the cold actually seems to affect me even though I'm only wearing a t-shirt. There must be some kind of charm.

Ginny leads me to the fencing, where there's an open expanse that stretches all the way out to the ocean. I lean against the wooden railing and stare out to sea, catching a slight whiff of the salty air for the first time.

"So, how have you been finding everything?" Ginny asks me, lowering herself so that she's leaning next to me, our shoulders almost touching.

I smile up at her. "It's been incredible, seriously amazing."

"Aside from the minor trip to hospital," Ginny laughs, nudging my arm.

I smirk. "Well it broke up the trip for everyone, I suppose." I tap my fingers against the wood and glance down. "I can't thank you enough, for everything, you know."

She shakes her head. "I meant what I said the other day, Isadora. I'd do anything for one of the family." A pang of guilt ripples through my stomach. Maybe Ginny's been tossing those words over and over in her mind too. "And that's why I just need to make sure that everything is…" She pauses. "-okay."

I swallow hard and force myself to meet her bright brown eyes. I have a sickening feeling in my stomach and my palms begin to clam up. "Okay?"

"Al's a great boy-" she starts.

"-I know," I interrupt, nodding earnestly. No matter what happens in the next few minutes, I want her to know that I _do_ truly care about her son.

"Let me finish," she says. It's not severe, but it's firm, so I bite down on my lip and steady myself.

"Al's a great boy. But he has his faults, of course. Nobody's perfect, Issy." She knows. She must do. Why else would she be talking to me like this? She knows and she's trying to make me feel better about being a lying, conniving bitch. "I think that sometimes Al gets ahead of himself, and that he doesn't mean to rush into things, but he gets so caught up in the moment that he can't help himself. Do you know what I mean?"

I nod, and I honestly mean it. "Yeah," I mutter. "I do."

Then she turns so she's facing me and says, "Issy, why don't you have an engagement ring?"

My heart skips a beat. I stare down at my bare fingers, suddenly horrified. We thought of everything! I could have sworn we thought of everything on that stupid train. But we didn't. How could we have forgotten a ring? Surely, the principal part of any engagement is a ring. I don't know what to say, but Ginny's standing there, expecting an answer. "I don't like them," I blurt out. "I don't like how traditionally the woman wears one before the man, I think it's not very progressive." I'm making it up as I go, but honestly? Not a half bad story. "So Al and I decided that we'd just exchange rings on our wedding day. You know, equality and all that." I'm nodding, completely caught up in the genius of my own story.

But Ginny's not nodding. She sighs, disappointed. "Al said you lost it, and that you hadn't got round to claiming on the insurance yet." My stomach drops and my heart begins to smash against my rib cage. "I asked him earlier."

Fuck. My throat has gone completely dry, so I swallow again. "He must have not known how you would react to that . He told me you and Harry were quite traditional about these things."

Ginny tilts her head to the side, considering what I've said. "I suppose," she mumbles. "I just wish he wouldn't _lie_." There's another pang of shame in my stomach. I'm sure I should say something to comfort her but I don't know what, so I just stand there, my mouth opening and closing like a dumb goldfish. "Issy," she says, her voice barely more than a whisper, "do you really want to marry my son?"

I falter. Her eyes are glassy with tears, and I can feel a pricking sensation in my own. But I feel like I'm stuck, it's too late to change this now. So I close my eyes, letting the tears roll slowly down my cheeks and nod my head. Ginny pulls me in to a tight embrace and I let myself rest my head against her. I'm not a big crier, but for some reason I just can't hold it in now. I'm thinking about Al, and everything he said about Emily, and the way he looked so vulnerable when he was wrapped up in bed. I think about James, and the way that he won't even look at me, and how he must think I'm some kind of cheater. Then, of course, Mark enters my thoughts as he always does, and I guess I'm crying for everything that could have been with him. And maybe I'm just crying because being here, with the Potters, it's made me realise everything I'm missing from my own family.

Ten minutes later, I'm scampering back towards our suite. When I reach the door, I realise I don't have a key, so I pull my wand out from my jeans' pocket and tap it against the door handle. I push on the door, but it doesn't open. All I want is to be in my bed right now. There's still tears running down my face and I must look like a crazed woman, angrily jabbing my wand against the door to no avail. Out of sheer frustration, I kick it and feel a sharp pain rising in my foot.

"Fuck," I mutter, hopping on one leg and grabbing at my bruised foot. Then I hear footsteps on the other side of the door. I'm considering making a run for it back down the corridor, but the bad foot front doesn't exactly make that look like a favourable option.

The wooden door swings open. " _There_ you are!" Lily throws her arms around me. "God, I was looking everywhere for you." She pulls back and grabs my shoulders, smiling brightly at me. I watch as her eyes take in my streaky mascara and red face. Her brow furrows and she tightens her grip. "Oh Issy! What's the matter? Is it Al?"

These days, that's apparently enough to set me off crying again. Lily pulls me into her again, and I feel her soothing hands rubbing my back and stroking my hair, just like her mother was doing downstairs. I'd left Ginny, telling her that I wanted to clean myself up, but with the assurance that I did care very much about Albus. It's gone too far, I can feel it. Everything is only going to lead to people getting hurt.

"Lily," I manage through sobs, "I think there's something I need to tell you."

I'm lying on Lily's bed, my hands over my face. Lily's bedroom is remarkably similar to mine and Al's, except that all of her bedding has managed to stay on her bed, rather than half of it being spread across the chez lounge. It also smells a lot better. I've been stuck on the bed for almost half an hour now, while Lily paces up and down, still shaking her head.

"So, let me get this straight," she says, not for the first time. "You and Al aren't engaged?"

I don't move my hands away from my eyes, but simply shake my head. I'm not even sure whether Lily is looking, but she's asked the question so many times now that she doesn't need to. Or maybe she's hoping I'm joking. Maybe she's thinking that if she asks enough times, then soon I'll jump up and say, "Only joking, Lil. But I really had you going didn't I?"

But I don't. Because for what feels like the first time in forever, I've told the truth.

Lily stops pacing. "So, Al _was_ engaged?"

I finally sit up and look over at her. She's frowning and her hair looks like she's run her fingers through it one too many times, but aside from that, she's handling it pretty well. "Yep."

"But not to you?"

"Nope."

She shakes her head again. "I can't believe it."

I glance up at her meekly. "I'm so sorry."

She sighs and sits down on the bed next to me, taking one hand and resting it on my leg. "It's okay, I guess. I thought something must be up."

I frown at her. "Why?"

She smiles. "Because for the past few days, I don't think I've even seen you two exchange a single word."

"That's not fair- I distinctly remember asking him to pass the salt at dinner yesterday!" Lily smirks but then looks down and begins picking at a loose thread in her jeans.

"Whose idea was it?"

"Mine," I admit, feeling my cheeks flushing. "It's so stupid looking back on it now, but I was panicking. I'd just lost my job, my boyfriend, my _home_. And then I met Al and everything just seemed to fall into place. I guess I just didn't realise how quickly everything would get so fucked up."

"It is fucked up," Lily concedes, but she doesn't sound angry. "Does James know?"

I swallow hard. "No. Nobody does."

Lily frowns. "That's weird."

"What is?"

"Well, it's just that Al and James usually tell each other _everything_. Or, at least, they used to." I suddenly feel like I'm about to be sick, so I lie back on the bed again. Lily does too and scoots up so that our heads are next to each other.

"Do you hate me?" I ask, turning to face her.

She rolls over too and looks into my eyes. "No, I don't hate you. I'm just sad that you guys felt like you had to do this."

"I am really so sorry," I whisper, feeling tears pricking my eyes again. But Lily smiles and puts an arm around me.

"Do you have somewhere to stay now? I would offer you a place at mine, but, well, I still live with Mum and Dad and that might be hard to explain…" she trails off.

I grin at how sweet she's being, especially because I've just told her that I've basically been lying to her the whole time I've known her. "It's okay. I think I'm going to write to my friends and ask if I can stay with them for a bit. And then I guess I'll try and find my own place." To be honest, the thought f actually getting back to normality is fucking petrifying. Probably only mildly less so than staying here with the Potters. But I think going to stay with Priyanka and Alice will be a good place to start. "Actually I should probably go do that." I sit up and wipe the last few tears from my face.

"You sure you're okay?" Lily asks. She grabs her wand and uses it to remove some of the mascara streaks from around my eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Are you?"

She grins at me. "It's a bit of a shock, but yeah, I'm okay." I smile back at her and get up, walking towards the door.

Then I turn on my heel and say, "Lils, could you not tell Al that I've told you? I know that's super bad of me to ask but-"

Lily waves her hand. "I get it. My lips are sealed." She mimes doing this and I leave the room, feeling significantly better than when I came in.

 _Issy,_  
 _Of course you can stay with us, dumbo. I've got a sofa bed in my room so you can stay there for however long you need. But only on the condition that you tell what the hell's been going on. Your boyfriend cheats on you and you disappear off the face of the earth for a week? That's dramatic even for you, Is._  
 _Al told me to tell you that she doesn't agree with that._  
 _Anyway, just floo in whenever today, one of us will be in._  
 _See ya soon,_  
 _Priy and Al_

I smile and tuck the letter, which was waiting for me at the breakfast table, into my jacket pocket. Today is our last day at the hotel, so we're eating and getting ready to leave. Ginny and I haven't spoken too much since we were out on the veranda, but her warm smiles don't suggest that anything's changed between us, which I'm completely grateful for. Lily, on the other hand, has become even more of my sole confidant. And, true to her promise, she hasn't breathed a word of what I told her to anyone else, although the knowing looks she shoots me every time someone mentions the engagement aren't exactly subtle.

I drain the last dregs of orange juice and stand up from the table, making an excuse that I need to finish packing. As I'm walking away from the table, a voice calls after me.

"I'll come help you," Al says, getting up to join me.

I fake a smile and wait for him to walk out with me. I've been maintaining my successful avoidance of him and I was really hoping to keep it up for the last few hours. But like most of my plans at the moment, that one seems to have fallen through.

We walk back up to the suite in silence and it's only after the oak door slams shut behind us that he finally speaks.

"You've been avoiding me," he mumbles.

"I haven't been, Al," I protest, although my blushing face clearly suggests otherwise.

"Stop lying!" he shouts. It's the first time I've ever heard him properly raise his voice, and it takes me by surprise. " _Why_ , Issy? What did I do?"

I sigh. "You haven't done anything."

"Then wh-"

"It's just complicated, isn't it? Frankly, I feel shit about taking advantage of your family like this, okay? I feel shit about lying to everyone. I'm also just fucking _confused,_ Al. Once we get out of here, I literally have no idea what I'm doing. So maybe it's nothing to do with you, Albus. Maybe it's just that _everything_ is going to shit."

Al looks a little taken aback at my outburst. "You could have talked to me about it." He has the same expression as before, vulnerable and hurt.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," he says, stepping towards me and taking my hand. " _I'm_ sorry that I got us into this."

I shake my head. "No, we both got ourselves into this mess."

"So, do you have somewhere to go now?" He pauses. "Are you going to go back to Mark's?"

"No, I don't think so. He was an arsehole in the end."

"Good. He doesn't deserve you."

I roll my eyes. "You don't even know him, Al."

He squeezes my hand. "Yeah, but I know you. And you're not the kind of girl who should be treated like that."

"Oh yeah? What kind of girl am I then?"

"The best kind." Al blushes and looks down at our interlinked hands.

My stomach drops, and I pull my hand gently from his grasp. "I'm really not," I whisper. I think the past week has proven that.

Al shrugs. "Where are you going then?"

"I think I'm going to go stay with Alice and Priyanka, they said I can stay on their sofa bed for a while."

Al frowns and shakes his head. "Nah, don't do that."

"Why not?"

"Because you shouldn't have to sleep on a _sofa bed_."

"Well do you have any better ideas?" I ask, crossing my arms. I'm not sure when he became my personal advocate.

"Come and stay with me," he blurts. He's said it so quickly that I'm sure I must have misheard him.

"What?"

"Come and stay with me for a while," he repeats. "I've got a spare room. You can stay for as long as you need."

I pause, the breath catching in my chest. "I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Why not?" he demands.

"Because we'd have to be around each other all the time! I'm not going to intrude on your life even more."

"You wouldn't be intruding, Issy," he says softly. He tries to reach for my hand again, but I pull it away.

"Don't," I snap, and then take a deep breath. "It's too complicated, Al. And people would get the wrong idea. I mean, it's not like we _actually_ have feelings for each other."

"Don't we?" He looks down at me angrily, his green eyes narrowed.

"Al?"

"Forget it," he mutters sharply, and walks away from me, towards the front door of the suite. He opens it, and standing in the doorway is James. Al pushes past his brother and stalks off down the corridor, leaving me standing alone in the room with James staring at me, confused.

"Trouble in paradise?" he asks snarkily, as he comes into the room.

"Why are you always so horrible to me?" I round on him. It's probably uncalled for, but I'm fuming. "The past few days, you've been glaring at me like I'm something you've just scraped off the bottom of your shoe. What did I even do to you?"

"Woah, Fletcher, calm it," he says, raising his hands in surrender. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing." I huff and push past him, heading towards my bedroom, but he catches my arm and pulls me back to face him. " _What_?"

He smirks at me. "Well, you see, Fletcher. I work for the Department of Mysteries, and we're supposed to report any suspicious or dangerous behaviour that we see, and right now, if looks could kill, I'd be stone cold six feet under. So, really it would be unprofessional for me to allow you to storm off now."

"What do you want, James?"

"I want you," he says, poking me, "to tell me what you're so pissed off about. Is it my twatty brother?"

"Twatty?"

"Oh please, Fletcher, he's a _Slytherin_ , of course he can be a twat."

"I was more concerned with you making up words."

James grins. "So you going to tell me what he's done?"

I bite my lip. "He hasn't done anything, really. He's a good guy."

"He is, isn't he?" James nods.

"What happened to him being 'twatty'?" I finger quote the last word.

James waves his hand. "Well, that's only sometimes. I'm sure you feel me- Fletcher the elder was a bit like that I seem to remember."

I shake my head darkly. "Don't get me started." I still haven't forgiven Amy for grassing me out to Mum.

"So what's up then?" James asks, running a hand through his dark hair awkwardly.

I look up at him and pause. "Nothing, I suppose." He doesn't look like he's going to take this for an answer.

"It'll save us all time and energy if you just tell me now. We all know you're going to eventually."

"And how do we know that?"

James claps a hand to his chest and flutters his eyelashes. "Because I, Fletcher, am what the ladies call, 'irresistible'."

I snort. " _Sure_ ," I say sarcastically, nodding my head. "Nah, but, I'm fine really."

"Well, I do seem to have cheered you up."

"Yeah, I got a good laugh out of your big. Ugly. Mug," I say, emphasising each word with a prod on his chest.

James catches my hand in his, and pulls me in towards him. "Glad to have been of service," he murmurs, into my hair. He wraps his arms around me and I can smell the coffee on his breath as he pushes his face against the side of my head. I pull away from him slightly and look up into those big, hazel eyes. And then, without thinking about what I'm doing, I'm leaning in to him, and he's leaning in to me.

The sound of the door flying open sends us jumping away from each other. Al is standing in the doorway, just as his brother was a few minutes ago, glowering, not at James, but straight at me.

"Mum says that we're leaving now," he tells us, not moving his eyes from me. He strides across the room and enters our bedroom, slamming the door behind him. James is looking at me with a mixture of guilt and disgust on his face. Al entering the room seems to have reminded him of who we are and what we're actually doing.

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. "James, I need to tell you something." I try to grab hold of his arm, but he wrenches it away from me.

"Save it," he spits and storms off in the opposite direction.

I yank my hands through my hair distractedly and hurry towards my bedroom where I can hear Al flinging things around inside.

"Albus, I can explain," I say, as I walk in.

He looks at me and for a second I think he might be about to cry. "I don't need to hear it."

"I'm _sorry_ ," I plead, crossing the room to him, where he's stuffing clothes into a duffle bag.

"You don't need to be," he says coldly. "Like you said, it's not like we actually have feelings for each other."

He carries on packing, not acknowledging me. I gather up the rest of my own belongings in silence, stealing glances at him. When he's done packing, he walks towards the door and finally looks back at me.

"At least it's over now."

I nod. "I just wanted to say, thanks for being so nice to me."

Al scoffs. "Nice? Great, I'm the _nice_ guy"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, you tell me, Issy. One minute you're going on about what an arsehole Mark was, but you just don't see that-"

"See that what?" I demand.

He shakes his head. "Nothing." He grabs his bag and starts to leave the room.

"Albus, _please._ "

He stops, his hand on the knob. "Maybe if I just swagger about and ruffle my hair up a bit, and just generally be a _complete_ twat and then you'd actually look at me like something other than a brother."

I shake my head. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about James! I'm talking about you and James and how nothing I do will ever be good enough for you because you're only attracted to arseholes!"

"There is no 'me and James'," I tell him.

He raises his eyebrows. "That's not what it looked like."

"Al listen," I start, but I don't actually know what I want to say.

"Save it," he says cooly. I'll see you around." And then he storms off again before I can say anything else.

Downstairs, Ginny catches my arm, as I skulk in the lobby, trying to not meet anyone's eye.

"Are you okay?" she asks gently.

I nod. "Yeah, I'm great. Thank you so much for everything this week."

She smiles brightly. "It was nothing, dear. It's been so lovely getting to know you." She pulls me into a close embrace and I wince involuntarily at the action. "Ooh, I have this for you." She produces a card from her trouser pocket and hands it to me. "Contact details for Luna at _The Quibbler_. I've already written to her for you, but if you just follow that up."

"Thank you," I murmur, squeezing her hand. And she shakes her head fondly at me again.

"Right everyone," she cries turning to her family. "We need to have a family picture before we all leave."

Al grimaces and James stares at the ground guiltily. Their mother doesn't seem to notice; she rushes over to the front desk to find someone to take our picture. I haven't spoken to Lily, but she seems to have noticed that's something's wrong as she takes my arm and leads me towards her bothers and Harry, who's trying to organise everyone into a pose.

Ginny comes back, followed by Louis Weasley, brandishing a camera. "So, we'll have the happy couple in the middle," she says, winking at me, "and everyone else around the edges."

I walk gingerly towards Al, who doesn't look at me but slips his arm around my waist. It's like having a corpse's arm across my back, he's not holding it up at all, rather letting it dangle limply.

"Say cheese," Louis says and I force myself to smile, but I can tell it looks strained even without seeing myself.

We break apart and Ginny turns to me. "I'll get a copy to you as soon as it's developed!"

I smile gratefully at her and walk to Al. He glares coldly at me. "What?" he asks.

"Do you need me to apparate you home?" I mutter to him.

He presses his lips together. "No. I'll go with Lily." Then he forces a smile and puts an arm around me. "I'll see you at home later, _darling_." He practically shouts the last word but Ginny and Harry don't seem to notice the venom in his voice.

"Yeah, see you later," I say, as I walk towards the fire places in the lobby, ready to floo to Priyanka and Alice's. I wave goodbye to Al's parents and Lily, who mouths 'Owl me' and mimes writing. I flick my gaze over to James and find him already watching me. I give him a weak smile and he responds by glaring down at the ground, shuffling his feet.

I sigh and step into the fireplace, saying the address and letting the emerald flames whisk me away. 

* * *

_**A/N- Raise your hands if you like some good ol' romantic angst? Nope, just me? Alrighty then. I hope you guys liked this update- it was a nice, long one! Do you prefer longer chapters, or should I split ones of this sort of length into two?  
I'd love to hear what you thought so remember to leave a quick review!  
Thanks for all the support so far- it means the world!**_

 _ **Alice xxx**_

* * *

 _ **There were issues with the formatting the first time I uploaded this, but hopefully this is better! Sorry!**_


	6. firewhiskey and sainsbury's basics vodka

Priyanka is stretched out across the black leather sofa in her and Alice's living room. Her feet dangle over the end, hovering about an inch above the floor and she's nonchalantly swinging them back and forth. She's still staring up at the ceiling, her dark eyebrows furrowed and her lips slightly parted as though she's in an ongoing disagreement with her brain as to what to say. After a few minutes of silence, she sits up, propping her body up with her elbow, and her long, black hair falls in a sheet against her face.

"What the fuck, Is?" she spits.

Glad to see all that thinking time has produced such eloquent sentiments. Although, I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting her to say. First and foremost because I've just finished explaining to her and Alice (who's sitting on the floor leaning up against the sofa) where I've been for the past week, and, of course, who I've been with. Secondly, while she has the face of a goddess, her airs and graces leave little of her crude thoughts to the imagination. The girl once pushed in front of a wheelchair bound pensioner to get on the tube first because her heels hurt. But, right now, I suppose, she's not exactly being unreasonable.

"I know," I groan, dragging my hands over my face in despair yet again. I look to Alice to see whether she has anything more sympathetic to offer and she shrugs a little.

"It's a toughie," she suggests. Coming from Al, that's a solid confirmation that my life is a shit-show. She's perhaps one of the most optimistic and chirpy people I've ever encountered. She twists a strand of blonde hair thoughtfully round her finger and bites her lip. "You could just write a letter to the Potters explaining and then, like, move away or something."

"Move away?"

"Yeah, you know, to Australia or something. It's well out of apparition range from here, they probably wouldn't bother to look for you for very long." I half-expect her to burst out laughing, but the solemn look in her wide blue eyes is suggests that this is an actual solution she's considering.

"Right, yeah, not leaning towards that one at the moment, Al, but I'll bear it in mind," I tell her and she nods at me seriously.

Priyanka shakes her head. "Nah, you can't run away to the other side of the world because of _boys._ That's stupid." I'm about to point out that she dropped out of NEWT Potions just because she didn't want to sit next to Scorpius Malfoy anymore after they broke up, but she continues. "What you should do is pretend you got hit by some jinx that's completely fucked up your memory. That way, you just never have to acknowledge anything that happened."

"Yeah, but she doesn't want to do that," Alice interjects, "because she thinks she might _like_ James. If she does that then she'll never have a chance with him." I'm pretty sure I never said that.

"Oh yeah, because _James Potter_ was going to be visiting Australia on the reg if she'd gone with your plan, was he?" Priyanka scoffs.

"I never said she had to stay there forever!"

"Guys!" They both turn from glaring at each other back towards me. I raise my eyebrows and Alice mouths, 'Sorry' at me, and leans back up against the sofa, bringing her knees in towards her chest. Priyanka flicks her long hair over her shoulder and pouts. "Anyway," I continue, "the 'James' issue isn't the main thing. What am I going to do about this internship?" They both look blankly up at me. "Al hates me, I mean like _hates_ me. He must do! And now I'm just supposed to take advantage of his mum being so lovely?" I sigh heavily and throw myself back against the armchair. It creaks under me.

"Listen, Is," Alice says, "my dad's friends with Luna too, I'm sure he could talk to her for you."

"But Ginny's bound to hear, isn't she? And then I look even more pathetic." Even Alice can't project her usual optimism onto this and she sinks back down.

"Fuck the internship," Priyanka says suddenly. "Seriously, you're smart, Issy. You don't need this to prove that to other people." I know she means well, but I can't help thinking that it's easy enough for her to say that when she's been settled into her job at the Ministry dealing with muggle-wizarding relations for well over a year.

"No, I think I've got to do it. I haven't had an opportunity like this since… well, I don't know when to be honest." Which is true. My adult life thus far seems to have been moving from settling on one 'something not quite right' to another.

Priyanka shrugs. We fall into a tense silence again. Alice is twisting her hair around her finger so fervently that I'm scared she might accidentally rip it out of her head and Priyanka is picking the non-existent dirt out of her fingernails. Then she looks up. "You know what pisses me off most about this whole situation?" She doesn't wait for us to answer. "That bloody Mark bastard."

My stomach pulls into the sickening knot that it does every time his name is brought up and my fingernails dig into my palms. Alice nods and mutters, "I always knew he was a piece of shit." Her eyes widen as though she can't believe that she's actually sworn and she claps a hand over her mouth.

"Couldn't have said it better myself, Alpal," Priyanka laughs and claps Alice on the back approvingly.

I frown. "So neither of you guys actually liked Mark?"

Priyanka cocks her head. "Well, he was _alright,_ I suppose…"

"But?" I prompt. Priyanka raises her eyebrows and looks pointedly at Alice who purses her lips and glances nervously up at me.

"It's not that we didn't like him, Is. It's just that we always knew that you could do better, you know?"

But I'm not sure I do know. Because I was with Mark for _such a fucking long time_. It's not as if he was a one-time or even ten-time meaningless shag. For all they know, I could have harboured huge dreams of building the rest of my life together with him. And they didn't even like him? But, more importantly, they didn't even bother to tell me this?

Clearly my distaste of their silence has registered on my face because Alice leans over to my armchair and takes my hand in hers. Her fingers are cool against my warm palm.

"Don't be mad, Is. I think we both knew that it was never going to be forever between you."

"Why?"

"Because he was always a bit of a prat," Priyanka scoffs.

I'm having a hard time stomaching her nonchalance. "Well thanks a bloody lot for sharing those particular thoughts with me," I mutter bitterly.

Alice shoots me an apologetic look. Her pale cheeks are reddening and she's biting the corner of her pink lips so hard that I'm scared she'll break through the skin in a minute. Al has never been one to handle any kind of confrontation particularly well. The girl cried when she was made captain of the Gobstones Team in her sixth year at Hogwarts because she was scared of being too harsh on the second years.

So I heave a sigh and squeeze her hand, which is still resting limply in mine, back. "It's fine, I suppose. I guess you guys were right in the end."

"It's not like we wanted to be," Al murmurs and Priyanka nods effusively, which sends her black hair rippling around her face. "Besides, my judgement is hardly the best either."

I furrow my brow, silently telling her to explain herself. She retracts her hand and leans back against the sofa. Priy reaches down and rubs her shoulder consolingly while Alice begins to bite her nails, a habit she's had since we were twelve years old. It means that something is wrong.

"What's going on?"

"Louisa and I broke up," Alice says, her voice barely more than a whisper and the sound being reduced further by her hands muffling her mouth. But the tears making her blue eyes look even more glassy and her quivering lip leave no doubt as to what she's said. My heart sinks and I slip down from my chair to wrap my arm around her. Louisa and Alice have been together for almost as long as Mark and I were; they met at a magi-zoologist in Canada, where Louisa is from, and the rest was history. And I suppose while a part of me _did_ never expect Mark to be my 'forever', I know that Al was absolutely smitten with Louisa.

She tells me what happened, how her and Lou just seemed to be drifting apart, and how, when they were leaving the reservation in Wales, where they had been working together for almost a month, last week, Louisa had announced that she couldn't face coming back to London again. She'd returned to her flat, just down the road from Al and Priyanka's in what's known as the 'Wizarding Quarter', and packed up all her things to be sent back to Canada.

"It was just like one second, I had everything, and then the next I just didn't, you know?" Al says. She's not crying anymore, and there's almost a bitterness to her voice that sounds so foreign coming from her.

I sigh and tighten the grip of my arm around her, my thumb caressing her arm just below where her t-shirt cuts off. "Yeah," I whisper. "I do."

I'm not sure how long exactly we sit like that. Al and I on the floor, leaning up against the black leather sofa that Priyanka found at a muggle car boot sale for a fiver, and Priy herself draped across its arm, her head resting on Al's shoulder. It grows darker and darker outside until eventually the only light in the living room of their apartment is coming from the lamps of the flats in the building opposite. From where I'm sitting, I can see the silhouettes of the people inside; regular people getting on with their regular lives, most likely dealing with their own problems, because everyone is, I suppose. My best friend was, and I had no idea because I was too absorbed in my own personal dramas.

"Right," Priyanka says suddenly, however long later, sitting up and clapping her hands together, "enough wallowing."

Alice and I both open our mouths to protest that, since we're the ones currently experiencing vast emotional trauma, surely we should be the ones to dictate when the wallowing has, in fact, been enough. Or, at least, that's what I'm going to say. Al probably would have been less dramatic.

But Priyanka presses a long finger to her lips and raises her dark eyebrows. "It's not going to make you feel any better!" Actually, I think listening to Taylor Swift's entire discography while consuming my body weight in chocolate cauldrons might take the edge off. "But you know what might?" I'm about to put forth my fantastic suggestion but Priyanka doesn't leave any time to actually hear the answer to her question. "Alcohol."

And that's really not something I'm ever going to argue with.

*

Two hours later, instead of the aforementioned consumption of my body-weight in chocolate, I have instead, saturated my blood with alcohol. I told you I was a grown-up. And it turns out that firewhiskey and Sainsbury's Basics vodka do do wonders for dragging one out of the depths of self-pity. Who knew?

We're sitting at Priy and Al's kitchen table, which is barely big enough for us all to squeeze around. Not starting off at a huge size (just big enough for two people to comfortably eat a meal at), Priyanka had shrunk it further by attempting to magically expand it, but getting her words muddled after one too many shots of the vodka. Cue the three of us descending into fits of laughter and seeing whether we could all stand on the table at the same time with only mildly disastrous consequences (I'm pretty sure Alice hasn't _really_ sprained her wrist).

I'm suddenly overcome with an emotion for my two beautiful best friends that I'm sure is only partly derived from intoxicating substances. Al is hiccuping to herself and running the ends of her soft, blonde hair against her nose, giggling slightly as she does so, while Priyanka is busy pouring us all yet another shot, lowering her head to make sure that the level of the clear liquid is exactly the same in each of the three small glasses. From where I'm sitting opposite her, when she appears behind the glass, her eyes are magnified and her thick eyelashes appear even more voluminous. For a second, I'm transfixed by the blurry image of my beautiful friend.

"You're so gorgeous!" I cry suddenly. Both Priyanka and Al look up at me and I reach out and hold each of their hands. I lower them into the the centre of the table (not a far stretch considering how small its become) and press all of our fingers together. The colours are so pretty that it almost makes me cry; my olive-toned fingers intertwined with Al's pale pink and Priyanka's dark brown ones. "It's art."

Priyanka snorts. "You're drunk, Issy-Bissy."

"So are you, Priya-Wiya," I retort and stick my tongue out. Priyanka shoots me a look that's somewhere between disbelief and thoroughly amused.

"I don't know how I managed to end up friends with the world's two biggest light-weights," she says, as she shakes her head and downs her own meticulously poured shot. For a second, she seems to go through some internal debate as to whether to pass the other two in mine and Al's direction, but then she downs them too, gagging slightly as she slams the final glass back on the table.

"Hey!" Al says, frowning suddenly at Priyanka. "That's infair!"

"What do you call someone who goes to the fair? Infair!" I giggle and Alice bursts out laughing. Priyanka doesn't look like she gets the joke so I tell it again but she still doesn't laugh.

" _Any_ way," she says firmly over our continued giggles, "you two definitely seem to be in better spirits."

"Hey! She's right," Al squeals excitedly. She reaches her hand out for a high-five and I lean over and try to return it. On my third attempt, I hit her in the nose a little too enthusiastically so Priyanka makes us stop trying.

"Personally I can't even remember what I was sad about personally," I say, nodding seriously. In the back of my mind, I remember that there are several things I'm very sad about, but right now, all I can focus on is the nice fuzzy feeling in my head.

"I think it was about _heartbreak_ ," Alice says, clapping her hands dramatically over her chest.

There's a pang in my own chest right where Al's hands are. "Oh yeah." Without telling it to, I feel my bottom lip start to tremble a bit, but before it can really get a good vibration going, Priyanka cuffs her hand on my back.

"Nope," she starts, "I swear to Merlin if either one of you starts crying, I'll put a ban on either of you having anything else to drink tonight." That shuts me up. "Both happy?" We nod. "Right, so my aunt Parvati sent me these special tea leaves from Kashmir which are supposed to help you predict your love life."

Alice gasps. "Can we try them?" she practically whispers.

"No, you utter cretin, I was just going to tell you about them and _not_ let you use them," Priyanka deadpans.

Al tilts her head towards me. "I'm confused," she says, in the same stage whisper.

I mimic her actions. "Me too."

Priyanka rolls her eyes and then gets up, dashing across the living room into her bedroom, and appearing a few seconds later brandishing an ornate purple box, with flecks of gold weaving across it. She sits back down and uses her wand to summon three teacups from the kitchen, which come flying towards us. Al's mouth forms a perfect 'o' as this happens. _It's just like magic_ , she murmurs. Ignoring her, Priyanka takes a sprinkle of the dried leaves from the box and places a small amount in each of our teacups. She then uses her wand again to produce a jet of hot water into them so that the leaves float back up to the surface and dance around each other in swirling patterns. For a minute, we all sit silently, staring at the surface of the rippling water. I feel like we're back in NEWT Divination again, the three of us crowded around a tiny table, my head slightly fuzzy from the incense burning, desperately hoping that our leaves give good enough readings to write a three foot analysis about.

"Right, drink up, ladies," Priy says once the leaves begin to settle back towards the bottom of the cup, disappearing into the shadows of the now purple water.

I gulp back mine tea perhaps a little too quickly, and then slam my cup back down on the table. The tea has gotten rid of some of the fuzziness in my head and I squint down into the depths, trying to remember anything from NEWTs which might help me to decipher the mess that is my current love life.

"I've got something here that looks a bit like a shoe," I say, twisting my teacup round to see whether the blob of leaves might actually start to resemble anything remotely recognisable. This is definitely like Hogwarts Divination lessons.

"Pass it here," Priy says. She was always the best at Divination. Professor Trelawney said that 'the possession of the Sight ran in her family', Priyanka maintained that she was the best at making up 'complete and utter bollocks'. "I think that's a stallion actually, which means," she consults the back of the purple box, running her finger down the list of symbols, "that your future suitor will be 'dark, brooding and with an air of mystery'." She snorts. "Well that really narrows things down, doesn't it?"

I grab my cup back and look at it intently. In my humble opinion, it still looks like my Nike trainers. "Wait, what do you mean?" I ask her.

"Well," she says, looking up from her own teacup, "that could describe any of them really, couldn't it?" I raise my eyebrows so she continues. "Well, you've got Mark. He's definitely 'brooding', a complete twat admittedly, but definitely a brooder. Then there's Albus: he's got dark hair too, and well, he's a Slytherin, isn't he? They're just a bit broody by definition. Right, now James, dark too, obviously, and the way he keeps having a strop whenever you try to talk to him, that qualifies as at least slightly mysterious."

She's not wrong. "He also works in the Department of Mysteries," I admit. I'm annoyed that I know that, I bet he wouldn't know where I worked, if I, you know, worked.

Priy's eyes widen. "Well then." She's starting to sound like a bloody mystery.

"But it's only some crappy Divination, right?" I'm trying to keep the desperation out of my voice but the fuzziness keeps letting it back in.

"Right," Priyanka nods, but she's smirking.

This whole time, Alice hasn't said anything, instead staring with an unprecedented intensity at her teacup. "Mine looks like a horsey too, P," she says. Clearly, the tea didn't have the same sobering effect as it did on me.

Priyanka gives her a disbelieving look but takes her cup from her and, again uses the chart to match Al's symbol. "Hm, I think you're actually right."

I can vaguely hear them having a detailed discussion of everyone she's recently encountered who could possibly fit that description, but I tune it out. I don't really know what to make of this, and the vodka and whiskey still sloshing about in my stomach isn't exactly helping matters. This could all just mean that I have a type. I mean, everyone does, don't they? I know when we were at Hogwarts, Priyanka refused to give boys a second look unless they had an 'rough accent' because she said it made them 'indescribably sexier'. Although, I doubt Scorpius Malfoy could ever really be considered to fit under the bracket of 'rough', so maybe that was just a fad. But this could be too, surely? Maybe I just need to find a dark-haired man who's not a complete dick to get this all out of my system, and them I'm good to go. And for some reason my thoughts keep circling back to James. I don't _know_ that he's not a dick, but I also don't know that he's not _not_ a dick, if that makes sense. I don't think it does.

"You alright, Is?" Al's voice breaks through my thoughts and I look up to find her and Priy looking at me, concerned.

"Absolutely great. Another shot anyone?"

Two hours later, we're stumbling down a London side street towards Diagon Alley. The November air has become so cold that it stings my nostrils as I inhale, and my breath leaves misty clouds that swirl up towards the dark sky when I breathe out. As usual for London, there's only a couple of stars visible in the sky, the rest obscured by the bright lights of the city, I stare up at them anyway. We'd left their apartment a couple of minutes earlier leaving behind a hundred-and-one discarded potential outfits and probably a thousand-and-one cotton buds used to clean up shakily done eyeliner. We, well mainly Priyanka, decided that what Al and I really need is a good night out to get all of the heartache out of our system. So here I am, wearing a tiny black dress that barely covers my arse cheeks and Priyanka's leather jacket tottering through the cold night towards 'Goblinz', a club on Diagon Alley that opened in March earlier this year.

You can see the neon side and hear the thumping of the bass from half-way down the street. As we approach the club, I can also see the huge line that's snaking across the whole building, as at least a hundred other young witches and wizards wait to get past the bouncers. We fall into the back of the line, Priyanka impatiently tapping her foot on the ground and checking her watch every three minutes with an exaggerated sigh and a flick of her long hair.

I've only been here a couple of times before, and both of those were when Mark had been managing the music, so we didn't have to wait out front. For a second, I'm panicked that he might be here, but I remember he had a huge bust up with the manager after the last time he scouted a band to play. Apparently them snorting dried dragon blood in the toilets hadn't gone down too well- that's a use for the stuff Albus Dumbledore apparently never picked up on. Anyway, after that Mark vowed he would never do any work for them again. I was pretty disappointed because the times I had gone, I'd had a great time. I throw my hair over my shoulder and pull Priyanka's jacket up, I can go here again now. Without fear of either running into Mark or having him chastise me for wanting to go somewhere so 'basic'.

The line moves pretty quickly, and within twenty minutes we're approaching the bouncers. I reach into the black clutch which Al leant me and pull out my Ministry approved ID. The bouncer I'm directed to looks like he must be at least half-ogre, with a spotty, balding head, no neck and some serious B.O. Still, I don't want to give him a reason to turn me away so I smile brightly as I hand him the card.

He stares at it for a second and then shakes his head. "Sorry, love. I'm gonna need another form of ID. It don't look enough like you."

I bite my lip. "I don't think I've got one," I mumble. This has never happened before and I don't know what to do. I mean, I know the smokey eye that Priyanka did on me before we left probably made me look a bit different, but I only got the picture on the card taken last year, I can't have changed that bloody much.

He shrugs at me, which reduces the size of his neck even further, you'd barely even know he had one. "Not a work ID or anything, love?"

Pang. "Uh I… no. I'm not working at the moment."

"Look, love," he says gruffly, "You picture don't look nothing like you, you ain't got any other ID, you don't work. You sure you're actually of age?"

"What?" I splutter. "Of course I'm of age! I'm bloody twenty-two!" I don't know whether to be flattered or offended that he thinks I could be some twatty sixteen-year-old whose snuck away from school to have a night out. The alcohol in me decides that we're going to be offended. "Look," I say, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of my voice, "I've been here loads of times before, and I actually know the owner-" almost true, he came to drop off a letter for Mark at our apartment once- "and I'm sure he wouldn't be best pleased if he knew that you were treating me like-"

I'm midway through a perfectly timed stamping of the foot (just to underscore my spiel and reaffirm how pissed off I am) when a voice cuts across me.

"Issy, what are you doing here?"

I look up and my stomach twists. Mark is striding past the other bouncers towards me. He's quiffed his dark hair up and he's wearing a three-quarter sleeve white shirt, and neither of these things are helping me to feel less emotional right now.

"Failing to get in," I say, glaring at the bouncer. Mark walks over to him and throws an arm jovially round his shoulder (not something I envy, I have to say).

"She with you?" the bouncer asks, not looking best pleased to have Mark draped over him.

Mark lets out a chuckle. "Yeah," he says, dropping his arm and coming towards me, "yeah she is." He links his arm through mine and takes my ID card back from the bouncer. "Sorry for the confusion, Kirk." Kirk, characteristically, doesn't say anything but turns back towards the throng of people waiting to be let in.

Mark laughs again and drags me through the main entrance. He flashes a smile at the witch whose collecting the entry fees and she lifts the red rope, allowing us to pass straight into the club. I glance over my shoulder before we turn the corner and see Priyanka and Alice, both shooting me confused looks. I grimace back but I don't know whether they catch it before Mark pulls me into the main room. The music is blaring and the lights are flashing but somehow I can still see him smirking down at me.

"What the hell was that about?" I snap, smacking him round the back of the head.

"Um, ouch?" I raise my eyebrows. "What's your problem? I just got you free entry! And entry at all, to be fair." He's laughing again.

"Shut it," I growl and he holds up my ID card.

"You do look a bit different," he says, squinting his eyes at the picture. "You don't even have sparkly eyelids in this one."

I snatch the card back and shove it into my bag. "What are you even doing here?"

"Well, you're _very_ welcome, Isadora." There's still a pang when he says my name. "I'm working here. The manager called and said they wanted someone a little less 'clean-cut' to play, and I was the first person he thought of to provide that."

"Right, well if you'll excuse me I'm going to go and find my friends." I move to walk away but he catches my wrist. I yank it back but he holds tight. " _What_?"

" _Relax_ ," he says, mimicking my tone. "What have you been up to?"

Well, Mark, let me tell you. "Nothing, I suppose."

He smirks. "No. No, me neither." He loosens his grip a little. "Look, I reckon I should apologise-"

"Oh, _really_?"

"Yes, really." I roll my eyes. "No I mean it, Is. I shouldn't have let you down like that. It wasn't cool."

"It… wasn't… cool?" I repeat slowly. I seriously cannot believe this man.

"What I mean is, if you ever could, you know, forgive me, then that might be cool." I frown at him. He just doesn't get it, does he? "We were great together, Is. We shouldn't let that all go to waste just because I'm a bit of an arsehole." Actually, I think that's exactly what we should do. But for some reason my brain isn't connecting to my mouth so I stand there silently. Then, before I can even think about what's happening, Mark's lips come crashing down onto mine. For a second, or maybe its longer, I let myself fall into the familiarity of it, feel the way his tongue finds its way into my mouth and the powerful way his lips caress mine. But then I think about the fact that they were doing exactly that with Ella and Merlin only knows who else. The thought of it is enough to flip my stomach and a sudden wave of nausea washes over me.

I pull away from him. "Excuse me, I think I'm going to be sick," I splutter before I run towards the toilets, pushing through the hoards of people on the dance floor.

Once the contents of my stomach has been emptied into the toilet bowl, I push myself off my knees and lean up against the cold tiling of the stall wall. _I hate him_ , I whisper to myself over and over again. I have to, because otherwise there's a part of me that might pick myself up off this cold floor and go to find him. I hear the door to the toilets bash open and footsteps clatter across the white tiles.

"Issy?" a girl's voice says. I can't place it straight away, but it doesn't sound like Alice or Priyanka, it's far too sober.

I stand up and slide the lock across to open the door. Standing in a scarlet dress that somehow manages to not clash with her dark red hair, her brow furrowed in concern, is Lily Potter.

"Lily?" I manage, before she's flung her arms around me, pulling me into a suffocating embrace that makes me glad I definitely have nothing still lingering in my stomach.

Pulling away, she clasps my face in her hands. "I'm so glad you're okay! I saw you with that man and it didn't look good so I shouted for you but I don't think you heard and then the next thing I know you're running into here looking like death warmed up and it took me forever and a day to get here to you and I'm just so glad that you're okay." She stops and finally takes a breath. "You are okay, right?"

"I'm fine yeah. Can't speak for the toilet I just chundered all over, on the other hand." Lily wrinkles her nose. "Anyway, what are you doing here?"

She looks at me blankly. "It's a Friday night."

" _Right_?"

"So I'm out with my friends? Isn't that what Friday nights are for?"

"Right, yeah, of course. You're making me feel old."

Lily grins. "But you are old."

"Not too old to leave a nice Explosion Potion down the bog."

"Explosion Potion?"

"Yeah," I say, gesturing to the toilet. "Explosion Potion, like, you know, your sick. Do the kids not call it that anymore?"

Lily gives me a look that makes me feel like my Great Aunt Susan when she asked whether anyone wanted to go to the Celestina Warbeck concert with her last Easter.

"Old as you may be," she says and I shoot her a warning look, "you're not going to spend the whole night in here. So let's get going shall we? We might be able to catch the end of the band's set…"

With a gut-wrenching feeling, I remember who's out there, and exactly what happened before the 'Explosion Potion'.

"Look, Lil, thanks for everything, but I think I'm just going to head home."

"What? No, just because you thr-"

"It's not that," I interrupt. She looks confused and I don't really know what to say without sounding totally pathetic. "Mark's out there. That was him."

"Oh."

"Exactly."

Then she shakes her head. "Nope. Boys are all shit, Issy. But you can't live your life in fear of them." Easy for her to say. "Come on, stick with me the whole night and I promise, if he gets within twenty feet of him, I'll punch him right on the nose."

And for some reason, I let her take my hand and guide me out of the girls' toilets, back towards the dance-floor.

*

One hour and several violently pink cocktails later, Lily is still holding my hand and swirling me around to something that only vaguely resembles the beat of the song. She's introduced me to her friends, who all sort of blend into one, and her cousin Hugo, who kisses me on each cheek and asks me _what_ product I have used to make my brows look 'that bloody bushy, darling'. When I tell him that I haven't put anything in them, he screams and kisses me again. I haven't seen Priyanka and Alice since we came in, but thankfully I also haven't seen Mark and I'm hoping that he's left now that the band's stopped playing. They're onto a DJ now, who keeps using his wand to amplify his voice to tell us that we're about to 'get lit'. Whenever this happens, Lily and her gaggle all scream, and by the third time, I'm screaming too. In fact, for a few minutes, I can understand why Lily does this every weekend. Don't get me wrong, I'm always game for a good night out, but since I turned twenty-one, it's been a sort of once a month affair. But hey, I'm having such a good time that you might just catch me here again next Friday.

Lily and I are mid-way through a very complex hand-jive routine that we're trying to perfect, when a group of guys approach us. At first, I'm so wrapped up in the dance that I don't actually notice who it is.

"And what is my favourite little sister doing at a nightclub?"

It's Albus. My heart skips a beat and I try to merge more into the group of Lily's friends as he pulls her into a headlock, but Hugo rushes forward to kiss his cousins on the cheeks and I'm left feeling very exposed. I'm backing away when my foot accidentally lands on somebody else's.

"Shit, I'm so sorry," I say, spinning around to find myself face-to-face with, of course, James Potter. "Oh, hi."

"Hey," he says, but I don't actually hear it over the music. I'm pretty sure he then says, "You alright?" To which I nod and give him a half-smile. I want to say something, to find anything to talk to him about, but before I can, he's turned back around to say hi to Lily.

I try to catch her eye, but she's too busy hugging her brothers, so instead I tell one of her friends, I think her name is Imogen, that I'm going to find my friends. Imogen doesn't seem to care, but I wouldn't want to just disappear on Lily.

I'm walking towards the staircase that leads up to a second floor to search for them up there when I feel a hand tap my shoulder. I jump around, half expecting it to be Mark. But it's not. It's Albus.

He leans forward so that he's whispering into my ear. "Can I talk to you for a second?"

I don't know what to say. I'm scared of what he might want to say, to be perfectly honest. But I also don't have the faintest idea where my friends might be, and I'd rather not wander round looking like a complete loner until I do. So I just nod and Al beckons me towards an outside smoking balcony. The fresh air and harsh light hits me and I blink hard.

"Look," he starts, "I just need to talk to you about everything that happened. Particularly, well, between us." He looks up at me for approval and I just nod, unsure of what else he would want me to say. I just hope that he's not about to have another confession of feelings because my stomach is still feeling delicate and I'm not sure it could take that. "In no fancy terms, I was bang out of order, Issy, and I'm really sorry."

That's sure as hell not what I was expecting. "What?"

"I feel awful. I shouldn't have put you in that position, it was such a dick move after everything you'd been through with Mark." I'm not sure exactly which position he's talking about, but I'll take it anyway. "I guess with Emily and everything, I don't know, I think it was just my way of dealing with it. But everything feels a bit clearer now, and I just needed to tell you that I'm sorry."

His green eyes are alive with emotion and his lips look raw with being bitten. He's resting his hands on the balcony and I don't know why, but I lean over and rest mine on top of his. The railing is cold and slimy under my fingers. "It was probably just the sea air," I say and he laughs.

"So we're good?"

I nod. "We're good."

"And I promise we'll sort this whole mess out, Issy. Maybe not _right_ now, but soon."

"Not right now is probably a good call," I grin and he smiles back then pulls his hand away from mine and walks back towards the door.

"You coming?"

But I know that I can't leave it like that. "Wait, Al, there's something you should know." He peers at me quizzically. "Your mum's helping me get an internship. That's part of why I didn't want to stop pretending on the second day. I'm sorry, it's super fucked up and-"

"Issy, I know."

"You know?"

He shrugs. "My mum told me."

"Oh." I don't know what to say. I mean, it wasn't exactly a secret, but it was a big part of why I've been feeling so awful about the whole thing, and he _knew_. "Well, would you hate me if I still did it? The internship, I mean?"

"Why would I hate you?" he asks, moving back towards me.

"I don't know, if you thought I was using you or something?" Even I'll admit, it sounds more stupid now that I'm saying it out loud.

"For fuck's sake," he spits. "I brought you out here to tell you that I'm not some pathetic little boy who needs you, a girl I frankly barely know, to look after me, okay? Do the internship, I literally could not care less."

I'm a bit taken aback by his outburst and Sober Me would know that the best thing to do is to walk away. Drunk Me doesn't possess that maturity. "Well, you weren't looking at me like a girl you 'frankly barely know' when you were asking me to move in with you, were you?"

"You're the one who bloody suggested this in the first place!" he counters, his hands clenched. "Has it ever occurred to you that I only agreed because I felt fucking _sorry_ for you?"

It feels like I've been slapped across the face. "Yeah, well don't think I regret it any less."

He rolls his eyes. "Whatever, Isadora. You have a good life now." And he storms back into the club.

"Fuck," I growl and kick the balcony railing. Hard. It hurts. With tears stinging the corners of my eyes, I lean across the door and take several deep breaths of the cold November air in. Then the door pushes open and I'm shunted forward. I spin around, ready to deliver a right bollocking to whoever's unlucky enough to be there. But it's James.

Why is my life just a crap version of Eastenders?

"Why is it your mission in life to make my brother miserable?" he snaps at me, slamming the door behind him.

"Excuse me?"

"Every time he finishes a conversation with you, he looks like he's about to cry. Why do you do it to him?" James is shaking his head and giving me a look that makes me want to cry myself.

"Look, James, this whole situation is completely fucked, okay? I'm not the only one at fault here."

"What do you mean it's fucked?" He doesn't sound as angry anymore. More concerned. "Are you guys still getting married?" Fuck. Fuckity fuck. I forgot that he still doesn't know that we're not actually engaged.

"No." His eyes widen. "I mean, yes. I mean… look, please just ask Albus."

"Ask him what?" It's the concern, I can't say no to the concern.

I take a deep breath and hope that this won't make Albus hate me more than he already does. "Al and I aren't engaged." I can hear James breathe in sharply. "We never were. Al and I both got dumped on the morning that he was supposed to be meeting you guys in Penzance and we ran into each other on the train there, and for some godforsaken reason, we decided that pretending to be engaged would be a good way of fixing our problems."

"You took the train to Penzance?"

" _That's_ what you took from that?" I say, and I meet his eye. And then we're both laughing suddenly, and I feel a sense of relief like all the tension has physically packed up and travelled out of my body.

He then, obviously, asks me approximately seventy-eight questions about why and when and how everything happened and, for once in my life, I try to answer honestly, despite it making me sound like an utter twat.

"Well, I guess it makes sense," he says slowly after a while. "Why you were always trying to 'explain' something to me."

I smile. "Yeah, imagine how much easier everything would have been if you'd have just shut your gob for five minutes and let me tell you before everything got too messy."

He gasps in mock horror. "Cruel and unfair."

"Oh, please, that's just the story of my life by this point."

He nods. "It does all sound a bit messy. And, for the record, can I just point out what a pillock that Mark bloke sounds like." I'd filled him in on that as well, reasoning that I may as well go all out on the honesty.

"Amen to that," I say, raising my hands up in appreciation. And I know I shouldn't be, but a part of me is so happy that James and I are finally getting to have our conversation, free of guilt or the overwhelming worry that someone might walk in on us. But then it hits me that, just because he knows now, the whole situation is barely any closer to be sorted. "James?"

"Yeah?" he says, his voice tinged with worry. It's cute. Sorry, not allowed to think that. (Yet.)

"What am I going to do about Al?"

James pauses, musing it over. "I'd say just give him time," he reasons. "It sounds like it's both of your mess, so both of you have to sort it out. Tonight, it's just our old friend alcohol making everything more intense."

I nod. "It does that, doesn't it?"

He grimaces. "'Fraid so. Leads to very poor decisions sometimes." He's moving closer towards me, his face just inches from mine.

"Oh really?" I nudge closer too, his hazel eyes meet mine and butterflies fill my stomach.

"Very," he whispers as he brings his mouth down on mine.

Kissing Mark was familiar but in the same way as coming back to your house after a holiday. There's a slightly funny smell and it's cold and you can't help but wonder whether things have changed since you left. Kissing James is like jumping into a swimming pool. Sudden, dramatic and different, but just overwhelmingly _fun_. It's the feeling of being on a holiday you never want to come home from.

*

"You kissed him? Like you two actually kissed? Five minutes after you told him that you weren't, in fact, engaged to his brother at all?"

"Better that than kissing him when he _did_ think they were engaged."

"Only slightly."

"And what about Albus?"

"Oh yeah, was James just suddenly not concerned about him?"

"Talk about brotherly love."

"Too right. I'm pretty sure Akash would punch me if I went after his sloppy seconds."

"Hey! I am _not_ Albus's 'sloppy seconds'," I yell, speaking for the first time, and making everyone in the muggle chip shop glare over at me.

"It talks," Priyanka whispers to Alice, her eyes wide.

"Oh ha ha," I deadpan. Then I sigh and turn back to my styrofoam container of cheesy chips and gravy, the only proper way to end a night out, of course. James and I had stayed out on the balcony for a while longer until eventually Priyanka came out there looking for me because her and Alice wanted to leave. I'm not sure whether I would have told them about everything that happened had she not practically walked in on us. But, alas, here we are having a classic debrief at four o'clock in the morning over some soggy chips.

"So, are you and James like a 'thing' now?" Alice asks, swirling one of her own chips round in a pool of gravy.

I shrug. "I have no idea. I don't even know whether I would want to be, even if he did."

Priyanka frowns. "Why not? I thought that's what you wanted?"

"It is! I mean, I think it might be. I just don't know because there's the whole Al situation."

"Toughie," Alice says. It feels like my life is just moving in circles.

"The way I see it, right," Priyanka says, laying down her plastic fork, so you can tell she's getting serious. "Is that James has a everything you want in a man. He's fit, funny, and you can tell he's got a thing for you." I nod. It all sounds pretty great so far. "But Al has everything you need. He takes the time to try to get to know you. He knew about the internship and didn't say anything because it might have swayed your decision, so you know he cares about your future. So it's a question of this: do you go for want, or necessity?"

I falter, trying to make sense of what she's said. And then I throw my head down onto the plastic table. Priyanka's leather jacket groans underneath me. It probably wasn't real leather at all. 

* * *

_**A/N- Hello, it's me risen from the dead. I'm so sorry that this has taken me so long to get up. I had the last of my exams and then I've been on three holidays and basically life has been very busy. But I'm back now and (potentially) better than ever. I hope you enjoyed this update- very character focussed but there'll be a lot more plot coming your way soon! And I hope the length makes up for my lengthy (haha) absence!**_

 _ **As always, I would love to hear what you think! It means the world!**_

 _ **-Alice x**_


	7. wine is nice

The sun is nearing the end of its descending arc, casting long shadows through the paned window which create a grid-like pattern across the dark wood floor. The orange light illuminates specks of dust caught in its beam which hang nonchalantly in the air. There's a definite sense of stillness in Priyanka's bedroom where Al and I are sprawled out on her double bed, him wrapped under her purple quilted blanket and me leaning up against the brass bed frame with a pillow hugged into my chest. We've been in this position for the best part of two hours, listening to old records from Al's parents house on Priyanka's muggle record player and just talking. It's as the light fades even further and the lamp posts outside the window suddenly flick on in a flare of gaudy yellow that Al finally sits up with a slight groan.

"I should get going," he says, leaning his chest forward to stretch out his back.

I pout. "Already?" Although we both know that we can't stay shut up in here forever, no matter how much I'd like to.

He nods solemnly and jumps off the bed with a newfound energy. "I'll see you next weekend sometime?"

"Sure," I tell him, and follow him towards the bedroom door. He heads into the living room, which is as still and silent as Priy's bedroom had been. I flick my wand at the lamps overhead and they both fill the room with light. Just as Al's at the fireplace, ready to grab up some floo powder, I say, "You sure you won't stay for some food?"

"Can't," he tells me with a small shrug as he reaches for the small wooden pot in which the grey powder is stored, "I've got a small mountain of paperwork to look at before tomorrow morning."

I don't protest again, knowing that it's only for a few sporadic moments that Al can actually relax and forget about his work for the ministry, and not wanting to push my luck.

"Take care of yourself, Is," he calls, stepping into the emerald flames and shouting his address above their roar. I reply with a similar farewell but Al is whisked away before he can hear it.

Sighing slightly, and resigning myself to a lonely Sunday night in, I cross the room into the little kitchen and peer into the magi-fridge, hoping to find some inspiration as to what to cook. These nights haven't exactly been uncommon during the fortnight I've spent at Priyanka and Alice's apartment. The former seems to be on one of her whistle-stop tours of the male sex, staying at what seems like a different house every night with whichever unfortunate soul she's settled on that particular day. Alice, on the other hand, has been away most nights as part of a project at her job, something about a herd of rare Croxlug being caught up in telephone wires. Or maybe it was fishing nets? Anyway, she's been spending every waking hour working even when she _is_ home.

There's been one benefit to all of this, however. In the past couple of weeks since the night at the club, Al and I have gone from strength to strength. Priyanka certainly got one thing right, Al really is everything I need and he's been coming over after work a few nights a week, just to chat and eat and generally hang out. Priyanka and Alice, however, haven't been best pleased about this, both taking it upon themselves to decide the after everything that happened, Al and I should give each other a bit of space. But, honestly, I have to disagree, becoming friends with Al Potter is probably the best decision I've ever made.

In other aspects of my life, however, things are not going so well. James hasn't made any contact with me since that night, and frankly, I'm pissed off about it. I mean, I know this is the twenty-first century and that I would be entirely within my rights to decide that I could be the one to make the first move. But it's been weeks and I've long since got the impression that if he wanted to speak to me, if he was being honest about having feelings for me, then he would have sent me a letter or _something_. And to make matters perhaps even worse, Al's _told_ him about the fact that he and I are friends now, that that issue is entirely off the table, and he _still_ hasn't reached out.

After inspecting the contents of the fridge for a full, disappointing five minutes, I eventually resign myself to reheating a portion of fried rice from a week-old Chinese takeaway. I give the box a good sniff (just in case) and tap my wand around the outside of the grease-stained cardboard carton a few times until the rice is sizzling slightly inside. I then leave it on the coffee table in the living room while I change into my pyjamas and eventually allow myself to sink down onto the black leather sofa, wrap a fluffy blanket around myself and dig a fork straight into the container, deciding that a plate may ruin this picture-perfect vision of self-pity. Turning on the muggle telly to a reality show, which is featuring a woman who eats the stuffing in sofas, I bite down into a particularly hot prawn, which burns the inside of my mouth.

The next morning, I arrive at the Quibbler building in Diagon Alley just as the street is beginning to flood with early morning commuters. It's a tall structure, mainly white bricked with a blue, swirling pattern around it that gives a strong impression of a helter-skelter at a muggle fairground. There are a variety of odd-looking plants outside, including a particularly aggressive one with bright red leaves that attacks the unwary if they happen to walk too close. Trust me, I learned that the hard way and my little finger still hasn't recovered. Ms Scamander visits the offices at least once a week usually and when we've been there at the same time, she's made a point of telling me all about the various beneficial properties of the plants. I don't bother informing her that, following my run-in with the maneating shrub in the red tub, I like to keep a wide berth from anything vaguely botanical.

I've been working here for a couple of weeks now and, so far, it's definitely the most fulfilling job I've ever had- and that's saying something considering most of the time I'm proofreading other people's articles. I'm writing my first piece of my own this week, it's only a short story about a restaurant that's opening up on Diagon Alley this week but I can't help feeling like I'm _finally_ accomplishing something.

There's the slight downside that I'm not being paid anything for all of this, of course, and while I do love living with Priyanka and Alice, sleeping on a sofa bed isn't really what I'd envisioned my adult life to look like. I have an interview at a bar on Knockturn Alley later this afternoon- after the war there was some serious gentrification there, and while the main nightlife scene has definitely moved on, at least this place was willing to give me a chance with no experience. Still, I suppose they can't be too picky when you're literally pouring pints in Voldemort's favourite hangouts.

I head into the main Quibbler office which, as usual, is buzzing with activity. By the window overlooking the street, a more senior writer, Stephanie I think her name is, is trying to shove a squirming mandrake into a bright orange pot. It's putting up a real fight- I think there's even some blood running down her arm- and opening its mouth to scream, fortunately no sound is coming out. I think she's working on a piece for next month's issue- 'I Raised A Mute Mandrake For A Week and Here's What I Learned About Myself'. Should be a real page-turner.

"Looking good, Steph," I remark as I sit down a few seats away (leaving a wide berth from the writhing plant) and hoping that's actually her name.

Stephanie grimaces at me, glancing up for just enough time for the little bugger to get another bite in. She swears loudly and I shuffle my seat a few more inches away.

Turning my focus to the magi-computer in front of me, I scan through the list of tasks I'm supposed to complete this morning. It's mainly just administrative stuff: mindless enough, which is probably a good thing considering the Mariah Carey blasting through the office. Davis is writing an article comparing the effectiveness of cheering charms before and after listening to different Christmas music. Last week I heard 'Mistletoe and Wine' forty-seven times.

I proof-read the articles I've been assigned for this morning, glancing at the clock what seems like every five minutes. I've made a reservation at the restaurant I'm reviewing for half-past twelve- a time which doesn't seem to be getting any closer. To be honest, I don't know why I'm even so excited about going. Work said I could bring two guests with me, and seeings as all my friends have normal jobs with twenty minute lunch breaks, guess who I've ended up having to bring? My

mother and Amy.

Yippee.

I was only going to take Mum so that I could give her some wishy-washy account of what's been happening with me recently before she gets some made-up bollocks into her head and convinces herself it's true. I thought I'd escape Amy because of it being in the middle of the day, and her being 'completely rushed off her feet' as a busy, busy healer. But, probably as a divine punishment for something I did when I was a small child, it was Amy's day off and she decided there's nowhere she'd rather spend it than going for lunch with her mother and sister.

Eventually, the minute hand drags itself round to the quarter-past mark, and I practically leap out of my office chair. I make a quick comment to Stephanie about where I'm going so that it doesn't look like I'm just running out of the office to escape Mariah's warbling- she's already told me that I'm all she wants for Christmas seventeen times- grab my coat, and head out onto the street.

There are a few early Christmas shoppers strolling up and down, puffs of steam emerging from their thick cloaks as they point and talk about the items displayed in the window. A young girl, she's probably about seven, stops dead in front of Quality Quidditch Supplies, and begins fervently tugging on the sleeve of her father's cloak, pointing into the window at the training broom on display.

" _Please_ Daddy?" I hear her whine. Her father smiles and shakes his head fondly. He pulls her away from the shop and she trails behind him with her head down, until something catches her eye in the next window and she runs forward to push her face against the glass. Her father glances back, squinting at the details of the broom.

"And _that_ is when Healer Morris told me that I'm almost definitely going to become Head of Ward by next Christmas!" Amy squeals. She accepts my mother's delighted 'oohs' and 'aahs' and, when I don't respond, she shoots me a smug smile. "Still," she says, "I suppose for now we should be celebrating Isadora's success. It really _is_ nice that you've been able to find something, even if it isn't quite a real job."

I'm about to point out that my 'not quite a real job' has got her a free spinach and mushroom risotto, but I bite my tongue and instead just meet her patronising smile, heaping my fork with fusilli from my own plate. "Well, I suppose it's just nice that the training for my profession happens on the job and doesn't rack up thousands of galleons worth of debt." Amy purses her lips.

It's notorious within the Wizarding community that the years of studying and training healers have to go through means that they always end up in debt up to their eyeballs. Well, almost always. Mum paid Amy's way through most of it- so she's got off pretty lightly compared with most other people. Still, it's a sore spot I'm happy to poke.

"It's very nice for _both_ of you, darlings," Mum finally says and Amy and I stop glaring at each other and look vaguely confused instead. Mum's never really been the type to jump in and put an end to our sibling squabbles. In fact, I think she rather likes the drama of them. "And I must confess I do have some news myself."

I'd forgotten she said that in her letter a while ago. My life is currently moving at about a hundred miles an hour so it's weird that this is still her latest thing.

"Which is?" Amy asks- straight to the point.

Mum presses her lips together in a tight smile. She looks so much like Amy when she does that. Her small nose wrinkling in excitement in the same way Amy's does when she looks mildly pissed off. Which is most of the time.

"Well," Mum starts slowly, clearly enjoying creating the anticipation. I try not to give her the satisfaction of looking interested, even though I do want to hear what it is she has to say. "I've met someone, darlings," she says, resting each of her hands on mine and Amy's wrists. "A man!"

Well that's not what I was expecting.

Ever since my dad left while I was at Hogwarts, my mother has never exactly lost her sex drive, giggling at younger men on the streets and flirting unrelentingly with waiters in restaurants, but as far as I'm aware, she hasn't had a proper relationship.

"His name is Andrew," she tells us, and for a second I can almost see a glimmer of real human emotion in my mother's eyes. Like she's dropped the whole 'oh darlings' airs and graces for just a moment, and is, in fact, just a woman talking about someone she genuinely cares about. "And he's thirty-three."

And there it is.

Amy chokes on the wine she's sipping and splutters into her hand. " _What_?" she finally gasps, lowering her still clenched fist.

I just sit there dumbly. Of bloody course, my mother couldn't just have a _normal_ relationship. Because when have things been normal round here recently?

Mum looks as if she expected this and is still smiling just as broadly, clearly adoring the drama this revelation has created.

"Did you give him some of your love potion chocolates?" I ask, and even Amy shoots me 'was that really necessary?' look.

Listen, I'm not being rude. For once. It's not as if my mother is really all that old- she's only forty-seven, and she looks pretty good for her age too. That's what a lifetime of unadulterated vanity will get you. But that still means that she was already well into her Hogwarts career when this guy was just being _born._ She fought in the bloody Battle of Hogwarts while he was still shitting himself in nappies.

What I'm really worried about, though, is the fact that Mum and her business are now worth a fair amount of money, probably enough that it would be worth seducing her for. I can't think of too many other reasons why someone would go after a woman old enough to be his mother. Okay, well not quite but very nearly.

"Where did you meet him?" Amy asks at the same time as I say, "Where does he work?". She glances at me with her brow furrowed in concern- clearly she's thinking along the same lines as me.

"Well, darlings," Mum starts, and she tells us all about how Andrew visited her office from Gringotts, to discuss switching to their new business savings accounts, and how it was love at first sight. Amy looks at me dubiously. "But," Mum says, "you'll get a chance to properly meet him soon- I've invited us to our house to spend Christmas with us this year!"

Oh it really is the most wonderful time of the year.

Mum leaves to get back to the office soon after, explaining to us that this is the busiest time of year for personalised orders, and reminding us that we should get in our own orders soon to avoid disappointment. I don't bother telling her that there's absolutely no one I want to seduce via a box of potion-infused caramel chocolates, even if the box will sing a variety of carols to them upon opening.

"It's just so fucked up," Amy says almost as soon as the restaurant door swings shut behind Mum.

"Yeah," I say, slightly disconcerted that Amy has just sworn, "It is a bit, isn't it?"

She leans forwards, resting her arms on the glass table, "So you agree we need to do something?"

I bite my lip, I'd made a promise to myself not to undertake any more meddling schemes. Not before the new year, at least. But I don't want to see Mum get screwed over. "Sure," I tell her, "I agree."

Amy nods at me firmly, grabs her handbag, and follows Mum out the door. Honestly, they're as dramatic as each other.

Picking my own things up and leaving to walk to Knockturn Alley, I realise that that's probably one of the first times in a while that Amy and I have agreed about anything. I'm not sure I like it.

The owner of 'The Centaur's Pet Nargle' bar is man called Jeffrey who I assume is only a few years older than me, but the thousands of cigarettes he's smoked over his life have sagged his skin and yellowed his teeth. He's reclining so far back on the leather sofa of the bar's back room that he's practically lying down, resting his hands on his chest in a prayer-like motion and staring up at the grimy wood ceiling. The whole image gives a strong impression of a drug-addict ex-rockstar lying on the couch of a disgraced psychiatrist.

I shift uneasily in my own leather (or maybe pleather) armchair and try my best to look vaguely professional, but also like I wouldn't mind working somewhere like… well, like _this_.

"So, Is-" he says in a broad cockney accent, "-you don't mind if I call you Is, right?-" I shake my head and attempt a smile. "So, Is, you've never actually worked in a bar before, that right?"

I swallow. "No, I haven't, but until recently I was working for a magical publishing agency and that gave me a lot of experience in customer service which I think is a really important transferrable skill…"

I trail off but Jeffrey doesn't seem to notice. "But you know how to pull a pint, make a few drinks?"

I nod earnestly. "Yeah. I'm pretty proficient in cocktails, too." When Mark and I were together, his older brother- a muggle- bought us a home bar for Christmas one year and so we both became decent at quite a variety of different drinks.

"Great," says Jeffrey, sitting up so quickly that his greasy ponytail swings over his shoulder. He pushes it back with his right hand and then holds it out to me. "Welcome to team Centaur, Is."

I practically skip out the bar, clutching my uniform- a set of black robes-, and my official letter of employment. Jeffrey told me that they hadn't got any other applicants so he just wanted to check I would be somewhat competent. But the fact that there wasn't any other choice doesn't dampen my spirits. As I walk down Knockturn Alley, I'm debating on whether to head back to the Quibbler offices to write my review on the restaurant or just go home, get into Priyanka's bed with a celebratory bottle of wine and do it there. What I'd really like, of course, is to be able to clamber into a bed that's _actually_ mine, with the blankets I've had since my Hogwarts days and not have to worry about spilling red wine on the sheets. But I still haven't got my stuff back from Mark's place. Or our place, actually. I also really need to sort out what we're going to do about the lease.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate being an adult?

And then, because as we've already established, the universe hates me, I see a familiar shape walking through the passageway between Knockturn and Diagon Alley towards me.

"Shit," I mutter as the man's broad silhouette gets closer. I can't just turn around and walk in the opposite direction, that would make me look stupid and pathetic (which I am but I don't want everyone else knowing that). Wishing I'd bothered to learn a disillusionment charm, I slam my head

against the slimy brick wall to hide it.

"Uh, Issy?"

I whirl around, using the end of my sleeve to wipe the moss off my forehead, and come face to face with Mark. There's a pang in my stomach. I'm never going to even _think_ about him ever again- clearly he's got some kind of summoning spell working in my head.

"Oh?" I say in as surprised a voice as I can muster. "Fancy seeing _you_ here!"

Mark ruffles his hair and shrugs (another pang). "Yeah, just passing through on my way to work. Doing stuff for a lot of the bars around here."

I smack myself in the head dramatically. "Well of _course_ you are!" I titter. I'm not sure why I suddenly feel so nervous. I mean, I haven't seen the bloke in a fortnight and yes, I haven't been seeing anyone else but I'm also not spending every night hopelessly pining for him.

"Right," Mark says uneasily. "So what are you doing here, then?"

I pause. I don't want him thinking that my life has completely fallen apart and that I've had to resort to being a barmaid, but I also can't deal with the secrets anymore. "I've just got a job. 'Centaur's Pet Nargle' just down the road," I say, gesturing vaguely behind me. I see Mark's eyes widen slightly.

"Oh wow, right- wouldn't've ever placed you there." He scratches the back of his neck and laughs.

"Well, you know where to come if they ever put you in charge of music."

I force a smile and begin to step past him. "Well, I'll be seeing you around, I suppose."

Mark puts out a hand to stop me (pang). "We need to sort everything, Issy. With, you know, the flat and stuff." He doesn't continue so I stop and fold my arms expectantly. He bites his lip and breathes so deeply that his nostrils flare, and for a split-second there's nothing I want more than to throw myself at him, pin him against the wall and plant my mouth firmly on his. "Well, you see, I've packed up all the boxes of your stuff, and I thought you might want to come and pick them up…"

He trails off but I'm barely listening. Have his eyebrows always made that cute v-shape when he talks? "Uh-huh."

"Because- well because Ella's moving in soon and we need the space."

Another pang. But this time it's in my chest. And it's more like a gun-shot.

I've spilled red wine on Priyanka's bed sheets. I don't care, though, I'll clean it up in the morning. Well, I cared at the time- I cried. But I've been crying for two hours now so maybe it wasn't really that which made me sad. And I'm on to my next bottle now so it's okay. I just can't believe how stupid I've been. Of bloody course she'd be moving in. They were fucking _together_. In fact, they were definitely fucking together. Fucking all over my fucking bed.

I pour myself another glass and drain most of it before I catch sight of myself in the mirror. Let's just say that an inferius would look more alive than me. The makeup I'd put on to go to work this morning is smothered all over my face and my eyes are red and puffy, stark against my sallow skin. I put the glass down and pick up a tissue from Priyanka's dressing table, wiping it over my face until most of the traces of black mascara are gone. Then I plod into the kitchen to get a glass

of water.

I lean against the black stone counter, taking steady sips and trying to calm my breathing. So what if Mark is moving on? I am too! I practically have two jobs! I have _friends_ and friends last a lifetime unlike stupid cheating bastards of boyfriends.

Plus Ella seems like a bit of a skank so she'll probably cheat again.

I'm imagining this scene in detail (and enjoying it more than I care to admit) when I hear a tapping on the glass of the living room window. I leave the cup on the counter and hurry to it, where I find a large tawny owl pressing his beak against the window pane. I'd recognise that bird anywhere having used him for the best part of two years- Mark bought him just after we got the flat. I consider just ignoring him and shutting the curtains but I like Caspar the owl too much to do that.

I push the bolt and open the window. The cold night air hits me as the owl flies into the room and perches on the leather sofa. "Right, what have you got for me then, Cas?" I ask seriously. Caspar jerks his leg out and lets me untie the parchment. I stroke the top of his head as I unfold it. "You know, if this is a horrible letter I'm holding you personally responsible," I whisper to him. But Caspar just ruffles his feathers and flies back out the window. Apparently it's males of all species who like

to make me feel completely alone.

I slouch against the spot the bird has just vacated as I begin to read, blinking heavily to get rid of the wine fog.

 _Is,_

 _I'm sorry that you're upset. I shouldn't have sprung it on you like that I guess. Anyway, you can come by anytime after six this week to get your stuff. Ells should be home._

 _I do hope you're okay, Issy. I really do._

 _Mark_

I throw the letter into the fireplace and point my wand at the empty grate. But the alcohol means the spell doesn't work properly and instead of incinerating the damn thing, it simply crumples slightly. I cross the room and rip it apart with my bare hands instead, pretending it's both Mark and Ella's stupid faces.

She's there in my house. I bet they're cooking dinner in my kitchen, swanning about the living room that _I_ picked out the decoration for, wiping up their shit with the toilet brush _I_ bought from the muggle supermarket.

And then I'm crying again, sitting next to the fireplace with my arms wrapped around my knees. Why should he get someone else? How did I suddenly go from having three guys to having absolutely bloody no one? What use are friends if they're not even here? And what the hell happened to James? You shouldn't be allowed to just tell someone you like them and then just ignore them. You can't just kiss someone like that and then… go?

I grab my wand and summon my bottle of wine from the bedroom. Wine is nice to me. Wine doesn't start playing happy families with some cheating tart. Wine doesn't get your hopes up and then just sod off.

By the time I've finished the bottle, my hands are shaking. It's not fair- and I'm going to do something about it. I pull myself up from the living room floor with considerable difficulty and stumble into the fireplace. Grabbing a chunky handful of floo powder, I speak as clearly as I can, saying the address Al scribbled down for me last week when he told me I should just go and 'see if you can sort things out'. Somehow I'm not sure this is exactly what he had in mind.

Most wizards have enchantments on their fireplaces so that not just anyone can floo right into their front room and James Potter is no different. I suppose not many people would take too kindly to a slightly inebriated, slightly deranged woman turning up in the middle of the night. From where I'm stuck behind James's fire, I can vaguely see into his living room. It has dark wood floorboards and a long red leather sofa- fancy, but definitely a bachelor pad.

This was a mistake. He might not be home. He might be home with another woman. Or, maybe worst of all, he might be home and not want to speak to me. I'm trying to work out how I can just get back to Alice and Priyanka's when there's a crash from somewhere else in the apartment.

"Who's there?" a voice calls, and James stumbles into the room, wearing nothing but spotty boxers and brandishing his wand like a sword.

Maybe if I just stay really, really quiet, he'll go back into his bedroom and he'll never even know I was here.

He comes up closer to the fireplace and casts 'lumos' with his wand. I blink hard against the bright light. "I know you're behind there!" he says, and I can tell he's trying his hardest to sound threatening. The bright red polka dots on his underwear do nothing to help this. "Who is it?"

He's practically inside the grate now, leaning forwards so that the muscles in his chest ripple and squinting with those deep hazel eyes. I'm trying to be quiet but I think my pounding heart must be giving me away. And then his head jerks backwards in surprise.

" _Fletcher?_ "

My mouth goes dry and I don't know what to say. I lean backwards as far as possible until my back is pressed against what feels like a brick wall. If I wasn't so drunk, I'd just try to apparate, but I know I'd end up splinching myself and I don't really fancy a trip to Mungo's tonight.

"Uh- hi!" I say eventually. James looks more shocked than ever but flicks his wand and the barrier between me and the grate opens suddenly. I stumble forwards and James grabs my arm to steady me.

Still holding tightly, he looks me up and down in disbelief. "I don't mean to sound rude but what the hell are you doing here?" And he doesn't sound rude- he just sounds confused. Which is completely fair, I suppose. He probably thought he'd made his opinion clear by not reaching out to me, and I've just shown up at his house in the middle of the night. I'm such a bloody mess and there's nothing in this world I want more than to be out of there as soon as possible.

"Uh- wrong address," I slur, trying to pull my arm out of his grasp, but he holds onto it. "I'll just be- uh- going now, I guess." I yank away again harder this time and trip against the fireplace.

"Woah," James says, wrapping his arm around me completely this time and guiding me towards the red sofa. "Yeah, no I don't think you're going to go anywhere right now." I want to protest but I'm all too aware of his bare chest next to my t-shirt. I collapse down onto the sofa and James perches himself next to me, biting his lip and fixing me with a look of concern. "How many have you had, Fletcher?"

I sniff. "Only a couple."

"Of bottles," James smirks. And then suddenly my face is wet and I don't know why. "For fuck's sake, Fletcher, are you _crying_?"

"No!" I protest, wiping my nose with the back of my hand.

James waves his wand and a toilet roll comes zooming across the room. He pulls off a piece and wipes my face with it. He's so gentle and he smells like soap so I cry some more.

"Shh," he says, moving closer towards me. I let him pull me close against him until my head is resting against his chest, and I can hear the quick beating of his heart. When I've eventually stopped crying, he runs his fingers through my hair and whispers, "So what's happened, Issy?"

The use of my first name catches me off-guard, but I've cried all my tears so I just take a deep breath. "I don't know. Nothing. Everything." I feel him chuckle slightly. " _What_?"

"Oh, nothing," he says quickly. "It just sounds like a lot, that's all. Or, not a lot at all." I stay silent, staring up at the swirly paint patterns on the cream ceiling and the few strands of James's hair that stick out the furthest.

"You have nice hair," I tell him.

He laughs. "Thanks. So do you."

"Then why didn't you speak to me after that night in the club?" He stiffens underneath me so I sit up and turn to face him.

"Is that why you're upset?" he asks softly.

I shrug. He sighs and pushes some hair out of his eyes. He really does have long hair. I'm surprised he can even see where he's going most of the time.

"Issy, look." I've heard that opening before. "I didn't ignore you because I don't like you-"

"Then why did you?" I interrupt.

He hangs his head. "I don't know."

He doesn't move for a few seconds so I reach underneath his chin and pull his face back up. His stubble tickles the tips of my fingers. He smiles slightly but I don't. I didn't come here for him not to give me any explanation. I mean, I'm not entirely sure why I came, but it definitely wasn't for that.

"I was just scared, I guess," he says finally. "I think I was worried that you were just upset about what happened with Al, and that I was just a rebound from that Mark bloke."

The sound of Mark's name makes my stomach turn. Or maybe it's just the red wine. Either way, I lean forwards on the sofa, breathing deeply and trying not to throw up all over James's posh wood floor.

"Issy?" James says, crawling on the floor to face me. "You alright?"

I nod slowly and sit back up. "Yeah, sorry."

"Me too," he says lamely.

We sit in silence for a few seconds. I figure I'll stay here until my stomach's settled enough to floo again, and then I'll go home. And flee the country, change my name and avoid human beings for the rest of my lonely existence.

"She's moving in with him, James," I say before I can stop myself. "They're going to live together, both of them in _my_ flat. Right where we lived." The tears are catching in my throat, but I force them back down.

"Oh, Issy," James whispers and sits on the sofa again, hugging me tightly. He presses his lips against my hair so I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face. "It'll be okay. You'll get through this, I promise."

"But what if I don't? What if I can't?"

"Of course you can," he murmurs fiercely, squeezing me close. "If you can pretend to be in love with my dweeby little brother, you can do anything."

I smile weakly. "I'm really sorry about that, James."

"I guess we both have things to be sorry for."

I nod gently and turn my head so I can look into his eyes. "I'm sorry for just showing up here too. And I'm sorry for being so drunk."

He grins at me. "'S'alright. You've clearly got more balls than me. And it's okay- just make sure you get me a taste of whatever you're drinking on our next night out. Clearly works wonders."

I stick my tongue out at him playfully, and before I know what's happening, his lips are on mine. His tongue dances on my lips, seeking entry and I let him in. He kisses me deeply, pulling me up until I'm sitting on his lap. My hands reach into his long hair, combing through it as I pull him in towards me. He runs his fingers around my waist, sending shivers up my spine. I can feel his bare chest underneath me, his heart quickening as he teases his fingers at the hem of my t-shirt. I reach my own hands down and place them on top of his as he lifts it up over my head. We break apart for just a second before he begins to kiss my neck, his mouth trailing down towards my collar bone. I pull into him, reaching again for his hair as my hips arch subconsciously.

"I- really- am- sorry- Issy," he breathes, in-between planting kisses up and down my neck.

"Don't be," I whisper back, pulling away for just a second before I kiss him hard again.

He reaches for my back and rolls me underneath him, my hands now running across his broad shoulders. He begins to kiss down my stomach, stopping just above the waistband of my jeans.

"Are you sure, Fletcher?" he whispers up at me, his hazel eyes excited and hungry.

I nod and he continues to kiss my body, pulling my jeans down my legs slowly. His kisses send waves of electricity through me and I instinctively let out a moan, my eyes shutting as I let him take over.

And then suddenly he stops and I can feel him shifting away from me on the sofa. I open my eyes and sit up. James is kneeling over me, breathing hard but looking thoroughly uncomfortable.

"What?" I ask, pulling myself up further, suddenly very aware that I'm left in only my underwear. "What did I do?"

"What? You didn't do anything," James sighs as he runs his hands over his face tiredly.

"Then why-?"

He inches further away from me. "You're drunk. I'm not about to take advantage of you."

"T-take advantage?" I splutter. This isn't a bloody Jane Austen novel. "I'm a big girl, James, I can look after myself."

"Oh yeah, sure," he says sarcastically, "that's why you show up at my house in the middle of the night pissed out of your skull."

I inhale sharply, reaching for my t-shirt and pulling it back over my head. "Fine! If that's how you feel I'll just leave then, shall I?"

He sighs. "That's not what I meant."

I can feel the tears stinging behind my eyes. It's because I know that he's right. I grab my jeans off the floor and march over to the fireplace, looking for the floo powder.

"Where is it?" I growl, turning back towards him. James is still sat on the sofa, his head in his hands.

"I'm not letting you floo home in this state, Issy," he says softly. Oh so _now_ he suddenly cares about me so much!

"James Potter you tell me where the floo powder is right now or so help me God," I snarl, advancing on him. I look wildly around the room but I can't see the stupid pot of it anywhere.

"Is I think you should just go to bed." He stands up and puts an arm around me but I shake him off.

"Just let me go home, please," I say in barely more than a whimper. There are definite tears in my eyes now. " _Please_."

He shakes his head with a pained look on his face. "C'mon," he says, taking my hand and leading me to one of the doors off the living room. We go into a large cream bedroom with a big double bed in the centre. The blankets look so soft I can practically feel them already.

James lets go of my hand and uses it to gesture to the bed. "Go on, get in."

I don't even bother to argue and clamber under the covers. They're even softer than they looked and I rub my bare legs against them gently. I shut my eyes and rest my head on the pillow. James climbs on top of the covers on the other side so I roll over to face him.

"Issy," he whispers, checking that I haven't completely conked out on him.

"Mmm?"

"I'm really sorry. And, for the record, I do really, _really_ like you, okay?"

"Okay," I tell him, my voice muffled by the pillow.

He kisses me on the forehead, stands up and creeps out of the bedroom.

* * *

 _Disclaimer- I own nothing except the OCs._

 _ **A/N: Agh I know it's been such a long time since I've updated this but I promise I'm abandoning! Although I doubt I'll have many readers left now. I started university, had a bout of glandular fever and have basically just not had the time or energy to write! But I'm back now and hoping to power through in the next few weeks.**_

 _ **Hope you enjoyed this rather all over the place chapter! I always love reviews!**_

 _ **Alice xo**_


	8. hovels and homes

Bright lights. Pain. More light. More pain. Why the bloody fuck is it so bright in here? It's December- it's supposed to be rainy and cold. And since when did Priyanka's curtains get so thin? I reach my arm out from under the covers without opening my eyes to grab the water bottle I keep by the sofa bed. But it's not there.

I sit up, realise I'm not in the sofa bed in Priyanka's room, and-

Oh shitting bollocks. I- I- I came to James's, didn't I? I flooed to James's house in the middle of the night _drunk_ and _crying_. And then- oh I fucking couldn't have- and then I cried again when he wouldn't sleep with me.

Bloody hell. I'm a liability. I should be locked up and never allowed contact with the outside world again.

I flop back down on James's bed and pull the covers over my head. I am never, _never_ drinking ever again. I'm not sure how long I lie there, my head pounding and my cheeks flushing at the mere thought of what happened last night.

I decide my best course of action is probably to just sneak out, write a note to James apologising, and then never _ever_ speak to him again. I throw the covers off again and wince at the light.

My jeans are wedged in the bedroom door so I tiptoe across the room, kneel down and try to yank them out. "Come bloody _on_ ," I hiss as the fabric gets caught under the crack between the door and the floor. | open the door just a crack to try to prise them out and immediately I hear footsteps hurrying out from the living room.

"Ah, so you're awake," James says, smirking as he stands over me. He's already wearing a white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hair is as well combed down as I've ever seen it. Which, granted, isn't very much. "How are you feeling this morning?" I can't tell whether he's being sarcastic or not.

I grab the jeans out and stand up, pulling them on as quickly as possible. James keeps his eyes firmly on my face the whole time, but he's still smirking at me. "Fine, thank you," I tell him as I pull the zipper up. "I'm really sorry. About last night, you know. I was totally out of order." I begin to walk past him into the living room, pushing my limp hair behind my ears.

James doesn't follow me for a second. "You don't need to be sorry, Issy," he calls after me.

I spin around. "I really think I do." I pat myself down and look round the room. "Seen my wand anywhere?"

"In the kitchen," he says, pointing to a room connected by an archway to the living room. "Had to hide it in case you tried to apparate home."

My cheeks flush again as I head into the airy kitchen and spot my wand lying on top of the white, marble counters. James's apartment is easily double the size of Alice and Priyanka's. The kitchen extends round in an L-shape with a large wooden dining table and chairs at one end and the swanky appliances and counters at the other.

"Thanks," I mutter as I shove my wand into my jeans pocket.

James follows me into the kitchen and leans up against the frame of the archway nonchalantly. "Coffee?"

I have no idea why he's not just kicking me out straight away. I certainly would if some deranged girl had rocked up to my house in the middle of the night. But my throat is so dry I can barely swallow so I nod gratefully and James flicks his wand at the silver coffee machine in the corner.

"You can sit down, if you want," he says, gesturing to the bar stools by the island counters. We've been standing in silence while the coffee machine whirs away. I sit and begin to rub my temples, which are still throbbing. A frankly uncalled for reminder of last night. "Headache? I've got some potion- hang on."

Before I can protest, James has disappeared through the archway. He comes back a few seconds later brandishing a vial of bright green potion and a spoon. I smile appreciatively and take two spoonfuls. It helps with the headache, but not so much with the overwhelming desire to flee the country.

James places a mug off coffee in front of me and I sip it greedily. He hitches himself up onto the counter opposite me and watches me drink for a few minutes.

"The thing is, Issy," he starts at the same time as I say, "Look, James." He laughs. "You go first."

I wish that I could just hear what he was going to say. "Right well, look, James, I just need you to know that I am really super sorry. That's not the type of person I am, honestly. So I'll just get going and then we can pretend like none of this ever happened?" I think a part of me is hoping that he'll immediately tell me that we're doing nothing of the sort, that we'll put this behind us.

"I mean, it's not exactly what I'd envisioned," he says and my stomach twists. I am such an idiot.

"Right, well. Me neither." It's true- I never imagined I'd stoop to this level.

James sighs and nods. "And I'd pictured it so many times in my head." He's smirking slightly now- and… is he _blushing_?

Had he really sat there thinking that I would get so desperate to talk to him that I would practically break into his house? Is that why he didn't talk to me? He _wanted_ this?

Clearly some of this has registered on my face because he suddenly looks slightly concerned. "I'm guessing that wasn't the right thing to say?"

I snort. "No! When would that ever be the right thing to say? You _wanted_ it to happen?"

He looks practically bewildered by now. "Well, yeah- that's usually what I want to happen when I meet someone I like."

What a conniving, sadistic little-

I slam my coffee mug down on the table and begin to storm out of the kitchen. I can't believe I actually thought that he could be a good person. I'm out the kitchen, with James chasing after me, asking me where I'm going, when I turn to face him. "You're sick- you know that?"

"Oh come on, Fletcher! It's really not _sick_ to imagine having sex with the girl you like!"

My heart skips a beat. "What?"

"I mean-," he looks embarrassed now, "- not a lot but just, you know, I wanted the first time to be special, I guess."

"James what the hell are you talking about?"

"Wait- what are _you_ talking about?"

"Me turning up pissed on your doorstep!" I snap, trying to ignore the familiar feeling of my cheeks flushing. James's eyes widen. "Why? What were you talking about?"

"Oh." It's his turn to blush. He heads back into the kitchen and pours himself a cup of coffee, avoiding my eye.

"James Potter, what were you talking about?" He still doesn't look at me so I follow him across the room. "James?"

"I was… you know… the…" he trails off.

"Yes?"

"The- you know- _sex_." He practically whispers the last word.

"Um, James- we didn't have sex." And I thought I was the one with the fuzzy memories of last night.

He grimaces at me. "Yeah, I know that."

"Right."

He runs his hand through his hair, desperately trying to regain some of his cool. It doesn't work. "But, yeah, it's just not what I'd imagined- I just wanted you to know that."

I smirk. "And have you spent a lot of time imagining it?"

He scowls. "Shut up, Fletcher."

"Lots of alone time?" He sticks his middle finger up at me. "Lots of _special_ _James_ time?"

*

"So," I pant, lying back, breathless, on James's bed two weeks later, "was that everything you'd imagined it'd be?"

He rolls over to face me. "Above and beyond."

"Why, thank you very much."

"I was referring to my own performance." I grab James's shirt, discarded on top of his bedsheets, and hit him round the face with it. "Um, ouch?"

I smirk as I wrap the shirt around myself, hop off the bed, and walk to his ensuite, my bare feet pattering on the wooden floorboards. I sit down on the toilet, swinging my legs and unable to keep the smile off my face. I feel like a schoolgirl who's just come out from behind a tapestry with her crush.

"Well then," James calls from the bedroom, "what are you going to rate me out of ten?"

I stop washing my hands and poke my head round the doorframe to look at him. He's reclining on his side on the bed, still stark naked, and smirking up at me. I swallow and turn my attention back to the sink.

"Do you do this to all your victims?" I ask. I examine myself in the mirror, pulling my hair behind my ears and wiping off the sweaty traces of this morning's makeup from underneath my eyes. I walk back into the bedroom with my arms folded and smirk right back down at James.

"Nah- not all of them. Just the pretty ones." He winks and I roll my eyes again. Although the smile still stuck on my face probably isn't conveying annoyance as effectively as I'd like.

"Six."

James gasps in mock horror and slaps a hand to his chest. I try not to look at the way that the muscles in his chest ripple when he does this. Instead, I start to get dressed, pulling on my work uniform that's currently discarded around James's bedroom.

With my new job, the internship at The Quibbler, trying to avoid the press who have caught wind of Albus Potter's supposed fiancé, and James's top secret job in the Department of Mysteries, this is the first time in two weeks we've found a moment for me to go to his house again. And this time I even had an invitation.

James still hasn't moved from the bed, and is watching me dart about the room with a bemused smile on his face. "So, Isadora, you're a writer, hm? Does this mean you're going to write a poem about me now?"

"Only if you're very lucky."

"Are you sure you have to go?" he whines. "We could just stay here?" As he speaks, he stretches his arm behind his head so that the V-muscle at the bottom of his stomach jumps out at me. My stomach is doing somersaults but I do my best to look unbothered.

"Yeah, James, pretty sure I have to go."

He pouts as I head into his living room, pulling on my shoes and grabbing my handbag.

" _Where_ are you going?" he calls in the same whiney voice. He really is like an annoying small child- I don't know why I'm still grinning over him.

"To write about you in my journal."

"I bet you say that to all the boys you sleep with."

"Nah- not all of them," I say, going back into the bedroom to give him a kiss on the forehead. "Just the pretty ones."

*

In the two weeks since I got the job at the bar, the temperature has plummeted, and my breath swirls up in icy clouds as I hurry along the busy London street to the bus stop. There's no point in even trying to find somewhere to apparate from- the city has officially descended into pre-Christmas madness, and shoppers are hurrying about everywhere, clinging on to plastic bags filled with shopping.

I finally reach the stop at the end of James's street and pull my phone out of my pocket, quickly scrolling through the notifications. Priyanka has texted me several times demanding to know whether I'm at James's. I left before she was awake this morning- not something I'd usually do, but James and I have barely had an hour to see each other, and so I wanted to make the most of it. I've been run off my feet at the Quibbler, proof-reading articles, and even doing a couple more of my own. It's not that I don't love the work, it's just between being there four days a week, I'm also working at the bar five nights including weekends, which, of course, is the only time James gets time off from the ministry. So when I didn't have to be in Knockturn Alley until three, and he didn't have plans for the morning, we took the opportunity to finally hang out.

Just as I'm composing a reply to Priyanka, my phone starts to vibrate.

"Hello?"

"Oh- so you _are_ alive?" Priyanka's voice fills my ear so loudly that I jerk the phone away from the side of my head.

"Yep, although I think I might now be deaf." I can almost feel her rolling her eyes through the screen. "What's up?"

"What's up is that I woke up and you're nowhere to be found and then Alice here thinks she remembers you saying something about a certain James Potter having this morning off."

"Oh, is Al there? Tell her I say hi."

"Stop trying to change the subject," Priyanka says, and I can hear Alice laughing in the background. The bus pulls up and I fumble with trying to get the muggle money out of my purse while still holding the phone in one hand. "Is? You still there?"

"One sec," I snap. The driver behind the glass screen scowls at me. "Oh- not you." I manage to extract a pound coin and slide it towards her with an apologetic smile. She huffs and prints my ticket. I take a seat on the top layer of the bus and direct my attention back to Priyanka who has started loudly speculating about my visit to James's with Alice.

"Right, hi."

" _Sooooo?_ " she drawls, not even bothering to hide the excitement from her voice. "What happened?"

"Uh, I went to James's."

"Yep got that bit." She pauses for a second before gasping excitedly. "Ohmygod! You totally did it, didn't you?"

"Did what?" I ask innocently, shifting closer towards the window to move away from the middle-aged man who's plonked himself down next to me. I want to point out that there are plenty of completely empty double seats on this level of the bus, but I just scowl at him instead and face pointedly towards the window.

"Don't even give me that! You and James did it!" She raises her voice. "Al they a hundred per cent did it!"

"Shh," I hiss, uncomfortably aware that the man next to me can probably hear everything she's saying. He shoots me an uneasy smile and wipes his nose with the sleeve of his khaki fleece.

"So you did?" Priyanka demands and her voice echoes slightly- she's definitely put me on speaker-phone with Alice.

"Maybe," I say, and I feel myself blushing and the corners of my lips creep upwards again.

They both shriek and start asking a hundred questions all at once.

"Was he good?"

"How big?"

"How many times?"

"Position?"

"Did you- you _know_?"

"You're both worse than him," I sigh, but I'm still grinning. Now I really feel like we're back at Hogwarts and Priyanka's just come back into the dormitory after spending the night with Scorpius Malfoy, ready to divulge all the juicy details. Speaking of which…

"Priy, what about you and Mr Mystery?" Turns out that she's spent most of the past few weeks at the house of just one guy- pretty unusual for Priyanka. She won't tell me and Alice who he is, though. Al thinks it's because she's going to wait and do a big reveal where she invites him over for dinner. I think it's because he's probably married. Anyway, it just feels a bit rich of her to be interrogating me over my relationship when I don't even know the name of her new beau.

"Hm," Priyanka says, and I can tell she's smirking. Sometimes I'm surprised that Priyanka wasn't in Slytherin; she loves having the upper-hand in literally any conversation. "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies."

*

By the time I get to work, a few of the other employees are already there and clocking in in the back room. We're never usually in this early- we don't open until the evenings, even on weekends- but today Jeffrey's got us all in to decorate for Christmas. He presents us with two cardboard boxes filled with brightly coloured tinsel and sparkly gold baubles. In short, the decorations are so tacky that I think my mother would probably immediately drop down dead if I brought them anywhere near the house.

"Oh cheer up, Issy! It's almost _Christmas!_ " the blonde boy next to me says as he crouches down and begins rummaging in the boxes. "Aha!" He's pulled out a hairband that has two large felt Christmas trees attached to it. He holds it out to me but I shake my head in disgust so he shrugs and shoves it on his own head.

"Looking good, Lou," I laugh, nodding my head and silently remembering to sneak a photo of him later.

Walking into work on my first day and spotting Louis Weasley behind the bar was definitely a surprise, but also definitely a welcome one. He apparates up from the spa in Penzance to work here in the evenings and always has a good story about some of the old hags (literally) who he's served that day. It's also nice because he's one of the few people who isn't constantly barraging me with questions about any of the Potter boys.

There have been some articles going round in the gossip rags which promise to deliver the full story of "Albus Potter's Chosen One". It was fine, in fact Al and I used to send them to each other to laugh at, until one of them managed to snag the picture that Louis took of us all at the spa. Since then, there's been a mass hunt to identify the girl in the picture (me). Luckily, I'm one of a few potential suspects and so I've avoided being completely hounded by the press. And since my mother wouldn't be caught dead reading something "so awfully common, Isadora", I'm safe from her too.

Louis, however, says that he doesn't want to hear anything about his cousin's love life, and that Al has apparently sworn him to secrecy anyway. I'm pretty sure he must know that something's up, but he's ignoring it for now which is highly appreciated.

He's taken a few pieces of tinsel from out of the box and is using his wand to string them round the dusty beams of the bar's ceiling while singing, " _Christmaaaaaas- the snow's coming dooo-oown, Christmaaaaas- I'm watching it fall_."

I roll my eyes as I take some of the less gaudy baubles and start hanging them around the fireplace. "You do know it's only the seventh of December, right?"

Louis completely ignores me. " _Lots of people around, Baby please come hoooo-ooome!"_ On this last line, he uses his wand to make one of the pieces of tinsel wrap itself around me. "Much more festive," he grins.

Louis works his way through a staggering repertoire of muggle Christmas songs while we decorate. He even has me doing the backing vocals by the time he gets to 'Feliz Navidad'. When we've finished, the bar looks as though it's been dragged through a mistletoe hedge backwards, but Louis looks pleased with his efforts so I keep my sarky comments to myself. Yes, I'm capable of doing that, thank you very much. Jeffrey also looks pleased. Perhaps he's hoping that our beautiful festive display will help liven up the rather demure clientele that usually frequent 'The Centaur's Pet Nargle'. To be fair, it is getting busier as we approach the holiday season and, as Louis keeps reminding me, the tips are also getting larger.

"Always tell them to have a Merry Christmas as you give them their drink, especially if they're old, they lap it up," he informs me firmly as we're getting behind the bar ready for opening. "Unless they look like they might be Jewish, in which case you should probably say 'Happy Hanukkah', unless you're not sure and then maybe just stick to 'Happy Holidays'."

"Right, I'll bear all that in mind, Lou, thanks," I tell him.

He shoots me a nod and a wink as he walks forwards to serve the first two customers of the evening, two middle aged witches both carrying several large shopping bags. "I didn't know Hogwarts had broken up for the holidays already, girls?" he says, fully turning on his Veela charm. They both gush over him and I roll my eyes. Louis would flirt with a mountain troll if it meant they put a few sickles in the tip jar when they leave.

We have a steady stream of customers throughout most of the night, so Louis and I don't have much opportunity to stand around chatting but he keeps me updated on how much his conquests- I mean customers- have left as tips. I don't get the same thrill out of flirting the change out of the customer's pockets as Louis does. This is especially true tonight; the people I'm currently serving at the bar are all men over the age of forty who I presume still live in their mother's basements and cream their pants when I accidentally brush their hands with mine when giving them their change.

"Those guys are seriously giving me the creeps," I whisper to Louis as I lean over him to grab a bottle of firewhiskey out of the cooler. He wrinkles his brow in confusion so I jerk my head towards the men sitting at the very end of the dusty wooden bar. While they're probably only in their mid-thirties or so, the array of greasy, grey sideburns and dark under-eyes make them look much older.

Two in particular have been staring at me all night, even when they're not trying to order another drink. Just staring at me, and giving me a creepy half-smile every time they catch my eye. It's not that unusual to get customers like that, even less so when they've got a few drinks down them, but there's something about these ones that's making my stomach turn whenever I look in their direction. Louis nods, and the next time one of them leans forward to order a drink, he hurries to that end of the bar, giving my arm a comforting squeeze on the way past.

Later, when the bar has mainly emptied out, and Louis and I are washing glasses while completing last orders, we finally have a chance to chat.

"Found a flat yet?" Louis asks. I've been keeping him well updated on my search to get a new place. I love living with Priy and Alice, but their flat is nowhere near big enough for three people, especially three people all working on completely different schedules. Besides, I'm hoping that once I'm finally out on my own, I can fully move on with my life, and out of this weird temporary phase I've been in for the past month.

That, and it means that I can invite James over anytime I want. Which, after this morning, I'm more excited for than ever.

"Trying to- I've got a viewing tomorrow. Everywhere is just so bloody expensive."

Louis nods in agreement. "What do you think I'm working two jobs for?"

I laugh and grab a sponge from the sink behind the bar, heading forwards to wipe down the countertops.

"That's what you want to get a man for," a gruff voice says. A chill runs down my spine as I look up and come face-to-face with one of the creeps from the end of the bar, who has now moved further up into the vacated seats.

"Sorry?" I say, trying to keep my voice steady. I glance over my shoulder for Louis, but he's taking leftover drinks into the back storage room.

"What you want to do is find a nice, rich man to buy a house for you."

"Do I?" It's getting harder to keep my tone casual. I can't help but notice how yellow his teeth are, or how he keeps licking his lips hungrily. And the fact that he appears to have stepped right out of the 1920s.

"Unless you're already moving with a boy? Then you want to find one who doesn't make a pretty thing like you worry about money." He looks at me expectantly, as if I'm suddenly going to reveal my life-story to some weird perv.

"Can I get you another drink, sir?" Louis's emerged from the storage room and come to my side, standing so close that are shoulders are touching. His tone is cool but firm.

The man looks suddenly perturbed and shakes his head. He downs the pint of lager still in front of him and gets shakily to his feet. "Well, sweetheart, I hope you find yourself a place." He pauses and then smiles, baring all of his putrid teeth. "And if not, I'm sure I can help you out."

And with that, he stumbles out of the bar, leaving the stench of alcohol and sweat behind him.

*

The next morning, I'm standing outside the staff entrance to the Ministry, rubbing my hands together to keep warm, checking my watch angrily every few seconds and sighing loudly. James sent a letter last night volunteering to come and look at flats with me after what went down with the man in the bar. I suppose that's what I'll miss about living with other people, the security of knowing you're not completely alone in the middle of the night.

But I guess that's what you trade in to escape the constant drone of Priyanka's snoring.

He's ten minutes late already, and my fingers are starting to go numb. Just as I'm about to give up, and walk to the flat by myself, the door of the public toilets opens and I spin around.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," James says before the door has even swung shut behind him. I narrow my eyes at him and he matches them with a puppy-dog expression. "I brought you breakfast!" He holds out a paper bag and the smell of pastry makes my mouth water.

"You're semi-forgiven." I take the bag from him and use the heat of the croissant to warm my hands.

" _You're_ beautiful," he says, pulling me into a hug and planting a kiss on my lips. I pretend to gag but I suddenly feel completely warm inside.

Oh god, James Potter is turning me into a sap. He's broken me.

He takes my hand as we begin to walk down the street to the block where the flat I'm viewing is. He's wearing a thick, black coat that I've never seen him in before and I snuggle into it as we walk. I'm barely listening as he tells me all about how someone had put more paperwork on his desk overnight and _that's_ the reason he was late. Instead, I'm trying to remember the last time Mark held me like this when we were just walking somewhere, and I can't.

Is it bad to be thinking about your ex when you're with someone new? Even if the 'someone new' is coming out a lot better in the comparison?

"Issy?" James's voice suddenly cuts across my thoughts. He's looking down at me inquisitively, his hazel eyes glinting in the morning sunlight.

"Sorry? What were you saying?"

"I said do you mind if I light a cig?"

"Oh." I frown. "I didn't know you smoked."

"Only sometimes," he says quickly, "I don't have to now if you don't want me to."

I shrug. "No, it's fine."

"Are you sure?" He's cute when he looks so concerned.

I nod. James pulls a packet out of his coat pocket and extracts a cigarette with one hand, still holding mine with the other. He rests it between his lips and lights it with the tip of his wand. The familiar smell of tobacco fills my nostrils and I inhale deeply. It smells of Mark.

I'm sorry, I know I just said I wasn't going to do the comparison thing.

"You okay?" James asks, taking a quick drag.

"Fine," I say, shaking my head to get rid of the thoughts of Mark. I squeeze his hand to reassure him and he bends down to kiss the top of my head. I feel my face reddening slightly at the touch of his lips and I inwardly cringe at what an emotional twat I've become.

We walk in silence for a few minutes, James finishing his cigarette and using his other thumb to trace patterns on the back of my hand, and me devouring my croissant. Alice and Priyanka never have enough groceries in.

"Wait!" he cries suddenly, and stops dead on the pavement.

"Are you okay?"

"I almost forgot." He drops my hand for a second, and it tingles with the lingering warmth of his grasp. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small. "Look what I got! It's a phone!" He holds it out to me like a little boy excitedly showing someone his favourite toy and I smile encouragingly. "It can do calls and texts and everything!"

"Wow," I say, trying to suppress a laugh. This is actually really good, though. So far, we've had to rely on sending letters via owls which isn't always the most convenient, or most mess-free way of doing things. He sticks his tongue out at my smirk.

"Shut up."

"All I said was, 'Wow'."

"Your eyes said it all, Fletcher," he says, putting the phone back into his pocket and slinging an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into him. He smells like tobacco and coffee and I nuzzle my face into the softness of his coat. He begins to whistle an old Celestina Warbeck song as we round the corner into the road of my building.

"You're in a good mood this morning."

"Lovely, isn't it?"

"I was going to say disconcerting, but sure, lovely works too."

He grins at me. "Why wouldn't I be in a good mood, Fletcher? The sun is shining, my paperwork is done and my girl is getting a place of her own." My heart skips a beat at this last bit and I bite my lip to stop myself smiling too hard.

"Might be," I correct. "Your- I _might_ be getting a place of my own. This one is way too near the limit of my price range to be definite."

"Optimism, Fletcher," he says, squeezing my shoulder. "It would do you the world of good."

*

The 'flat' can barely be called that. It's basically one room- a 'kitchen' I guess you could call it, with a couple of green, mildew-stained counters, a mini-fridge and a plastic oven, and a bed shoved into the corner, right next to the singular window. The estate agent promises me that there's a bathroom through the peeling door squeezed in next to the bed, but I'm too scared to go and check.

There's a funny smell, too. I'm pretty sure someone died in here- maybe they're still in the bathroom.

"So, I suppose that's about it!" titters the estate agent, I think her name is Julia. Her eyes keep darting about the place as if even she can't believe that anyone could ever live here. "I'll let you two discuss it for a few minutes." This is when she would probably leave the couple alone in the kitchen while she makes herself busy in the living room. In this case, however, she can't stay in the flat without being about four feet away from us, so she backs out the front door. She has to kick it to make it shut properly.

I turn to James. His face looks as disgusted as I feel. "I know it's not brilliant, but I think I'm going to have to take it." No, I can't quite believe I'm saying that either.

And apparently neither can James as his face contorts even further. "What?"

"I know but-,"

"It's a hovel, Issy," he interrupts, gesturing around as if I couldn't have possibly seen the place properly and still want to live there.

"It's not _that_ bad!" A lie.

"Issy, come _on!_ "

"It's not a hovel, okay? Sure, it's not brilliant but frankly it's all I can afford." I feel my face flushing slightly as I say this, but I inhale sharply to stop it. I can't let myself be embarrassed about not having any money. "I'm not about to run to my mother for money to buy a swanky flat." Although I'm sure my mother would probably require intensive therapy if she knew her daughter was considering renting this place.

"What?"

"I said that I'm not going to go running to mummy just because it's not a palace!"

James is now shooting that disgusted look at me. "I have _never_ run to my parents for money!"

"What? When did I say that?"

"You implied it."

I run my fingers through my hair exasperatedly. "I didn't!" He turns away from me coolly. "For God's sake, James, not everything is about _you_! My life doesn't revolve around you!"

I regret saying it instantly. James looks back at me, but this time, he doesn't look angry, or disgusted, he just looks hurt.

"Issy?" he croaks, his black eyebrows frowning so deeply that his eyes are crinkling.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-." I run out of words so I reach out and grasp his hand instead. "I don't know why I said that."

James doesn't say anything so I just keep talking. "Look, I know this place is a shit hole. _Obviously_ it is." He cracks a small smile at that as we both take in the horror scene around us again. "But right now, it's all I can afford. I can fix it up a bit, you know with spells and stuff. It won't even be that bad once I'm done with it. And I can't keep relying on other people, I just can't. I've done that once before and look where it's got me. I need to do this by _myself_ , can't you see that?"

He looks at his feet and shakes his head. "Issy- move in with me."

I choke on nothing. " _What_?" What the hell is it with these Potter boys trying to get me into their houses?

"Come and stay with me. I've got plenty of space, I own it so you don't need to worry about rent. It's perfect!"

"James, I…" I trail off because I don't know how to string the right words in the english language together to say, 'I'm flattered and all but we've only known each other for a month and I'm worried that maybe you just want to harvest my organs.'

"Come on, Is! It'll be great!" He looks so excited again and I just don't know what to do.

"I can't," I say firmly. "I'm sorry, and thank-you, seriously, but I can't." He opens his mouth to protest but I cut across him. "We haven't even been on a real date, James. We can't move in together!"

"Fine, I'll cook you dinner while you're moving your stuff in. A proper date."

"James, no." Nice one, Is. Let them down gently.

"I'm a great cook- I promise!"

" _James_." His face falls and my stomach squirms. "I think I really like you James but-."

"Not enough to move into somewhere that doesn't smell like rotting flesh? Right, got it," he says sarcastically. He begins to stride towards the door, reaching into his pocket to pull out another cigarette. "Let me know when the housewarming party is, I'll be sure to have something on that night."

"James?" I call after him, but he's already pushed past Julia and down the hall.

"So?" she says, looking confusedly between me and James. "I'll take that as a 'no'?"

I heave a sigh. "Actually, it's a 'yes'. Where do I sign?"

*

"Wait- he actually asked you to move in with him? As in you two, together, in one house?." Alice shakes her head in disbelief as she starts organising my t-shirts into colour coded piles. "Weird."

"I know!"

We're in Priyanka's room, who, of course, is nowhere to be found, packing up my stuff ready to move it into my new place. I signed the lease then and there, partly because I knew that I probably wouldn't find anything better, and partly out of spite.

"Haven't you known him for, like, a month?"

"That's what I thought! He's not even my boyfriend. Well he's not _not_ my boyfriend. But we're not even _official_ , you know?"

"But the place was awful?"

"I wouldn't say _awful_." I hesitate. "I believe James's choice of words was a 'hovel'."

Alice shrugs thoughtfully and uses her wand to make my clothes fly in neat piles into a suitcase. I lie back on the sofa bed, feeling bad that I'm not helping but also knowing that she's much better at spells like that than me. Her mum does run an inn after all.

Besides, my mind is still running over the conversation with James in too much depth for me to actually think about anything else.

"Are you going to talk to him about it?"

I sigh. "I don't know." James seemed so angry when he stormed out of the flat. I haven't seen him like that since we were back in Penzance. "I wouldn't even know what to say."

"Just tell him that nothing needs to change." I frown slightly at her words so she exhales deeply and continues. "I mean, he's probably a bit embarrassed now, you know? Like he put himself out there and you-"

"What would you have done-?"

"I'm not saying you're _necessarily_ in the wrong. I'm just saying that he isn't either- everything he did sounds like it came from a good place. Just let him know that you know that." She tucks her hair behind her ears. It's a move she used to do after answering a question right at school.

"You're so clever, Al." Imagine what it would be like to be able to think rationally about something before just jumping to conclusions and ruining my life. Wow. Maybe I could get a pocket-sized version of Alice, and I could just carry her around with me and whip her out whenever I get myself into an awkward situation.

May as well just keep her out all the time.

Alice blushes. "No I'm not. I just _get_ people, you know?"

"Nope, can't relate."

"Yeah, I've noticed. _Ow_ , Issy!" I smirk as she throws down the pillow I've just lobbed at her head.

I lie back down on the bed, thinking over everything Alice has said while she finishes packing my underwear.

Then a ringing sound fills the apartment and we both sit up, looking at each other in confusion.

Alice cocks her head. "I think that might be the… the doorbell?"

"We have a doorbell?"

"Quite possibly," Alice says quietly, brow furrowed, as she gets up and heads towards the kitchen and the front door. I follow her, leaning on the kitchen counter as she opens the door.

There's a tall man with jet black hair standing in the doorframe. For a second, I think it's James and my stomach begins doing somersaults. Then I realise he's too thin to be James, and he's holding a briefcase anxiously in both hands. I doubt James even knows what a briefcase is.

"Albus?" I walk forward to the door and pull him into a tight hug. His arms hang limply at his sides so I let go quickly. "This is a… surprise. What's up?"

"Can I come in?" Al asks quietly. "I need to ask you something."

The somersaults start again and I feel the palms of my hands go sweaty. James has told him- he has to have done. And now Al wants to ask me why I've felt the need to fuck the both of them over.

"Sure," I say breathlessly, and step aside so that he can walk in.

"I'll just… be in my room," Alice calls as she darts back across the room. I scowl at her and she shoots me back an _I'm sorry_ grimace as she shuts her bedroom door behind her. She still doesn't approve of my friendship with Albus, _I'm sorry, Is- it all just seems so_ incestuous _, you know?_ , but I'm pretty sure her current aversion is because of how nervous he looks. I wish I could just run away into my room.

Al sits down on the black sofa and begins to wring his hands. I'm not sure where to sit, next to him feels wrong, so I perch on the armchair instead. I cough slightly, indicating that he can start to talk now, but he just looks ahead.

"What was with the doorbell?" I don't really register saying it until I have. At least it fills the silence.

"What? Oh- I've been standing outside for the past half an hour deliberating on whether to come in."

I snort. "Well that's not creepy at all."

Al barely cracks a smile. In fact, he barely looks up at me and the butterflies fill my stomach again.

"So," I start, trying to keep my voice level, "you wanted to ask me something?"

Al looks up as if he's surprised to see me. "Right, yes. I need to ask you for a favour."

"A favour?" I repeat slowly over the sound of my heart slamming in my ribcage.

"Yes." He sighs, scratching the space in between his dark eyebrows thoughtfully. "Every Christmas the Ministry holds a ball, and all of the more senior employees are invited, you know?"

It's the first I've heard of this ball, but I nod anyway.

"Right, so I have to go. And my parents are also going obviously." He swallows hard, the Adam's apple in his throat protruding.

"Obviously," I repeat.

"So naturally they, and anyone who they've spoken to, will be expecting _me_ to take… well, they'll be expecting me to take _you_."

My mouth goes dry. I was so stupid to think that the ridiculousness of this situation was behind us.

"Naturally."

" _So_?" he asks, his wide green eyes meeting mine.

"So?" I know what he's getting at, but maybe if I play dumb he'll give up on me.

"Will you be my date to the ball? I know it's a lot to ask, with James and everything. But it would really be a massive help to me if you did this."

I sigh, flicking my gaze to the loose thread on the arm of the chair and picking at it absentmindedly. There's absolutely nothing good I can do right now.. If I _don't_ go to the ball with Al, I've let him down, the _one_ time he's asked me for something. If I _do_ go to the ball with Al, I'm the worst not-not-girlfriend ever. But Al's my friend. And James is not not my boyfriend. Who just stormed out on me.

This is when I need my miniature Alice to tell me what to do. But instead I'm left to my own, shitty devices. So I take a deep breath and say,

"Sure, I'll go to the ball with you."

*

When Al's left after many hugs and thanks and promises that he'll tell his parents to keep the 'engagement' on the down-low, I head back into Priyanka's room and change into my pyjamas. I'm tucked under the covers trying to get an early night when my phone vibrates. Instinctively, I grab it from the bedside table and hit the home button.

Blinking hard against the bright light, I see that I have a text from an unknown number. I swipe to read it.

 _I'm sorry- such an idiot. Put it down to too much early morning paperwork. I can't wait to visit you in your new hov- I mean home. -J_

The corners of my mouth flick up involuntarily. I send back a single red heart, lock my phone and roll over in my bed.

* * *

 _ **A/N- Happy new year, everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday season!**_

 _ **Woo so I feel like even though this chapter was pretty long, not a lot happened which I'm sorry about. But I promise it was necessary!**_

 _ **Anyways, I would love to hear what you thought of it and also any opinions on the new banner! Not sure how I feel about it!**_

 _ **Love,**_

 _ **Alice**_


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